Chapter Three: The Lady Lauriette

Chapter Three
The Lady Lauriette

The desert swallowed Rook whole, sucking at his legs when he walked, threatening to choke him with random sandstorms. The young priest clambered through the never ending sand, climbing over high dunes and becoming lost in the valleys that separated them. Before long, his legs ached. He pushed himself on following an unseen target, a calling that he felt more than heard. Dawn was coming, the first rays of the sun lighting the many curved horizon. The young priest’s body was sore from the beating he’d taken, his legs stiff and his boots full of sand. He kept on until the sound of his boots tapping against the earth drew his attention. The sand had become hard underfoot from years of drought. The dune under which he stood was knitted with holes, hardened dune caves that echoed the wind’s touch as it passed over them. By that time exhaustion had numbed his senses. He knelt and peered into the dark recesses of a cave wondering if any creatures lurked there. Surrendering himself to fate he crawled inside and curled himself up in the small space. Sleep took him with greedy hands.

By midday, the fierce sun was shining down on his dark boots and the fabric of his trousers that protruded from the cave. Rook woke, the heat on his feet and ankles unbearable. He squinted at the bright, white light that battered his vision from the cave’s jagged opening. His mouth turned down in a look of disgust and he burrowed his way further into the cave. With shaky hands, he scooped sand over his body, hoping to ward off the stifling heat. Once more, sleep took him in its dark arms and plagued him with nightmares of Ali-Majra, her evil cat eyes, her lilting laughter. He wasn’t ready to wake, had even decided he didn’t care if he ever woke again. His dreams shifted to the ghost that had visited his mother after her death. The specter’s words echoed in the cave. “Z’yest na falthour, Shah.” Still, they held no meaning for the young priest. His dark eyes cracked open. Time had slipped away. The sun was setting and the dim light in the cave didn’t burn his eyes as badly. He’d slept away the day but it still felt like he’d been there only a few minutes. Again the ghost’s voice sounded, echoing along the sand crusted walls of the cave.

“Must be the wind,” Rook mumbled, for he heard it blowing outside.

It was evening when he emerged, sand falling from every fold of his velvet tunic. The grains of sand were caked to his boots and lost in his thick black hair. His left cheek was crusted with it and he brushed it away like an annoying swarm of gnats. The horizon was the color of burnt-gold as the sun glided into oblivion. He knew if he followed that sun, he would return home. But what would he be returning to?

“A cage,” he answered aloud.

‘This way,’ a soundless voice called. It was the ghost. He was sure of it. It wanted him to go deeper into the desert, probably leading him to his death he mused. With a wan smile, he turned from the sunset to follow its voice.

Rook wandered for days in the dunes, searching the horizon for the voice that called to him. There was no visible specter, only its soundless call. He could have been imagining it, convincing himself it was real. Never before had he felt called to do anything. Sleepless nights and despair were probably what created the calling, he thought. Nevertheless he followed it. Stomach grumbling, he resorted to prayers.

“Creator, please,” he prayed, “let my people be saved from this war, let them be free from the evil I have brought upon them.” His mother’s death weighed heavily on his heart. The guilt only worsened as he moved along, his footfalls heavy and gouging the desolate sand each time they fell.

“It is best that I left,” Rook whispered. “They’re better off without me. No one wanted me there in the first place.” His brother’s words tickled his mind: You will always be my brother no matter who your father was.

“Was it not I that brought Ali-Majra to the castle?” he yelled. “I’m selfish; Raynier said it many times. Perhaps he knew me better than I know myself. He knew the greed I possessed for the Shan-Sei secrets! My carelessness killed my mother! I should die in this desert. I’d rather die than endanger my brother’s life.”

Silence was his only answer, no words from a revered creator, no mystic ghost that laid an icy hand on his cheek, nothing. He sighed and plodded on. He had to get ‘there’ wherever there was. He passed a bilsaberry tree, stopped, then turned and went back to it. His mouth watering, Rook drew his dagger and thrust it into the tree’s ancient bark. The sap ran slow and he sucked at it, his only source of water. When he could take no more, he held his chalice to it and let the sap dribble in. That filled, he moved on to the thick skinned dry berries. By their taste they’d hung from that tree for ages. Nevertheless, he chewed them up and swallowed them down. It was the only food in the desert wastelands.

Weeks passed by and his body became light as his weight slipped away. Time was now a mysterious thing that clouded his thoughts. He kept on, talking to himself for there was no one else to converse with. Rook traveled at night to avoid the heat. It was always bright enough when the three moons joined at midnight to see far into the distance, though the horizon had become the same with the passing of each day. For all he knew, he was traveling in circles, raiding the same trees. During the days, the priest slept in dune caves or, when his luck was not as strong, he slept in the skeletal shadow of bilsaberry trees.

He began to believe the Creator had sent him out there, had called him, whether to pay penance for disobeying the bishop or for some other purpose, he could not be sure. He even mused that this was hell. Determined to serve his time, he plodded on, every day, praying.

He longed for the spicy scent of a fresh drawn bath, the liberal application of sirimac oil over his skin. He had never before appreciated what a luxury his bed had been. The sandy press of the caves was a far cry from the simple linen sheets and soft pillows of the temple. Even so, he didn’t miss the temple, the confinement, the prying eyes of the other priests. In the sandy arms of the desert Rook was entirely and mercifully alone with his guilt. Only the sand whispered behind his back as he passed.

One particular night he woke as the three moons became one. The light was bright and blue as he crawled from a cave and began plodding along in his usual manner. Something emerged on the horizon. Rook rubbed at his eyes. A stone was jutting from the sand. As he came closer more stones were visible; the one became two, then six, then ten. Finally, there were thirteen stones, a height of which was six times his size. The stones were arranged roughly in a circle. The priest stopped in the center and knelt in fervent prayer. At once his body was flooded with ease. It had to be a sacred site. This place had drawn him. Within the circle of stones he felt an overwhelming calm, the thoughts of his mother drifted mercifully from his mind at last.

Kneeling there in prayer, Rook stayed past dawn. He no longer wanted the shelter of a sandcave. The sun pierced the cold night air and banished it. The sand around him began to warm. He felt something near, a spirit, a presence, then the feeling he’d had when he first decided to walk into the wastelands returned, the feeling the he was being pulled. It was the dark power or some manifestation of it. Though his body was strained from lack of proper nourishment and his mind ached with dull thoughts, the young priest began to chant. The words came to him without guidance though they were not his own. The voice of the ghost was beside his ear, prompting him in its own strange tongue.

The sand stirred around the stones. It rose into the air and began to spin around Rook in a great whirlwind. He kept chanting. The words fell from his lips without thought. Raising his head to the sky he cast his dark eyes upon the heavens. He was amazed. Clouds were forming above the stones in a circular mist of white. Clouds! They came from the very air, seeming to form at the command of his words. They puffed and spread above the stones growing wider, straining to cover the entire sky. He stopped chanting and drew in slow, calming breaths. The clouds grayed then began to cry down upon the priest, gently at first, then pouring upon the parched sand. Rain began to puddle, the sand unable to drink it in fast enough. In all his life, Rook had never seen such rain. He was a child of the desert, raised in a city ever pressed by drought. To him the rain was a miracle.

He stood up. His tattered robe was drenched, the fabric not made to resist water. A gentle breeze came, cooling his body from the heat of the midday sun. Rook raised his arms to the sky and cried along with the heavens. He swayed as he tried to stand there until, at last, the dizziness got the better of him and the waterlogged desert world went black. His body fell down into the sand, drained of energy and strength.

He woke that night and could find no stars by which to guide himself. The moons were doing their best to shine through the thick blanket of clouds yet they failed. The rain was sputtering down gently. He was cold, wet and lying in a puddle in the center of the stones. Though he felt as if he could sleep for days, he pulled himself up. The dark power was drained from him. He had set it to the sky and created clouds. Rook was mystified by the whole of it. He had come with no intent but the power had called him, bent it to his will. Or was it the ghost? He wondered if the two were one.

“Mother, I’m sorry,” he whispered, hoping somehow that her spirit could hear him.

The Great Kaladian Desert had not seen rain of that magnitude in ages. Rook could see no end to the clouds. Streams of water were running alongside him in the darkness. His prayers had been answered. Rain was perhaps the greatest gift his people could be given. He prayed that it found them and that its fresh tears gave them water to last generations. Staggering away, Rook left the circle of stones.

He walked through the night pausing to pray to the morning sun as it began to climb in the distance. Light shown on the changed desert world. The horizon was no longer an endless swooping cascade of dunes. It seemed a wall of some sort. It was far ahead, but the priest was sure he could be to the wall before the heat of midday. As he walked toward it, the bilsaberry trees became more plentiful. He passed them, pressing himself on though his stomach growled at the defiance.

The wall on the horizon had not been a mirage, but had become trees. Blankets of birds flew over them in sheets. Their songs drifted on the wind to him. It was the first sound of a living thing he had heard in a long time. Rook stopped at the edge of the trees to listen. He closed his eyes and took in the scent of the trees. It reminded me of the oil the priests used to clean the temple’s floor. Pine was it? He stared up. The trees were dark, gaping monsters, taller than any tree he’d laid eyes on. Rubbing his eyes in wonder, Rook began to believe himself dead. Such trees could only be found in the afterlife. Their branches were shaggy, a dark glossy green that was welcome after days of staring at the pale, lifeless sand.

“Is this heaven?” he asked. For he felt he’d traveled through the penance of hell to get there.

Rook swallowed hard. The Great Kaladian Desert ended there. It just stopped and a forest started on the other side. The whole of the scene struck him as unnatural. In fact it was unnatural, the result of a group of Shan-Sei priest’s abuse of the dark power generations before. He stepped off of the sand that he’d known all his seventeen years. His footsteps were no longer dry whispers in the sand, but crunching sounds that announced his movement through the trees. The sun was swallowed by the canopy of spindly leaves that towered above him. Never before had Rook felt so insignificant. He walked along in the day unchallenged by the fiery warmth of the sun, a blessing. Still, he wondered if death had taken him or if he was in the grip of some heat induced dream. Perhaps his body still lay in the desert, dying beneath the tortuous sun.

As if to convince himself that he still lived, he touched the trees as he passed them. Rook caressed their hard, mottled bark. He came upon a bush laden with red berries and popped them into his mouth. His fingers were trembling. The berries were sour. When he could find no more to pick, he wandered away. He paused at a stream. Crabs were darting back and forth beneath the clear water. He watched them in wonder. His stomach was grumbling.

The priest sat down amongst the pine needles and cleared an area. He built a fire with his spark stick and gathered twigs that lay nearby to feed it. His metal chalice, thick with dried bilsaberry sap was his only container. He filled it with water and strung it over the fire to boil. The crabs darted away as he stepped into the stream. The work of catching and cracking them was not worth the pittance of meat they provided. His stomach growled worse than ever.

Rook stripped and bathed in the icy water. He shook out the sand from his robes and pulled them back on, wishing for fresh garments. His hair was a mass of tangles but he had no comb. If he ever came to civilization it would have to be cut off. There would be no saving it.

Sleep came that evening with a new sense of gratitude. The wayward priest was now certain the Creator had spared him in order to call the rain-clouds. He hoped he was worthy of some new deed that must be performed. He dreamt that night of his mother. She was no longer writhing in death. Her face was calm and restful. Her long dark hair flowed around her in a gentle breeze. She wore a shift of green gauze which reminded him of the green pine trees. She spoke softly, almost in a whisper. “Keep going, Al-Shinah. Your journey is underway. You are the star that shines for Shan-Sei.”

He woke to the sound of the forest birds singing. What little sky that was visible was gray with clouds. Rook thought back over his seventeen years and counted how many times it had rained in Kaladia. No more than four, and never like this!

He began his journey again, enjoying the crisp air, the cool crunch of the pine needles and the clean scent that filled the forest. The rain continued to spill from the sky like tears. Rook found he had to stop often to steady himself against bouts of dizziness.

He came to a road that cut through the forest. It was cobbled and ancient, the stones worn from use. Rook hovered there, his body light. It seemed a curious thing to find. With no other direction in mind he began to follow it. The road wound southward. For a long time the only sound was the heavy clunk-clunk of his boots as he plodded along. The young priest was lost in the echoing sound of his own footsteps until they seemed to double. He turned his head and realized it was the sound of horse hooves clattering along the cobbled road. He stopped, his body teetering, and watched the approach of a grand carriage. It bustled past him. The curtains were drawn despite the rain. Gazing down at him from the window was the most beautiful face he’d ever seen: a woman with fair skin, her mouth a flower-bud, drawn down in a look of annoyed boredom, her eyes a flash of bright green that seemed to stare straight into his soul. Her hair was a mass of braids that framed her sweet, angelic face. She was holding her hand out of the window to catch the droplets of rain. She smiled, an expression that made her glow. Then she leaned out as the carriage passed, her eyes wide and caught on the priest’s.

Rook was ashamed. His robes were tattered, his boots, caked with mud and his brown skin was reddened from the sun. He was comforted a bit that his hair was covered by a torn piece of brown silk that had once been his waist-belt. If not for that she would have seen the tangled mass of his hair and surely though he was a vagabond. The only woman Rook had ever noticed and felt self-conscience about his appearance with before that day was Ali-Majra. The thought of her chilled him and he pulled his eyes away from the girl’s. Such thoughts were not the way of the Shan-Sei. He shouldn’t be gazing at women.

The carriage passed leaving the memory of her face haunting him. Another smaller carriage followed suit, its curtains drawn. A white horse was tied to it. It sauntered along, a proud creature though its hide and legs were muddied. The beast tossed its head this way and that. Rook had seen only a few horses in Kaladia, big, muscular things made for burdened tasks, one of them being the mare he’d bought for Ali-Majra. This creature was light and graceful. Its mane and tail, though filthy with road mud, were long and flowing.

It was then that Rook fell forward, in a sway of dizziness. His body betrayed him as he’d betrayed it with so little sustenance. The cobbles bit at his chest as he hit the road. The muddied rain water ran around him creating a new path for itself. Still awake, but too weak to move, he laid there and let the mud pool in his robes.

The carriages went on a ways before he heard the tinkling of a bell. The whole procession stopped. Voices echoed through the damp forest, the shouts of an argument. Rook turned his head to see beyond the mud puddle. Something was happening, but it was as though he were trapped in a dreary dream in which he had no control over his own body. The carriage driver was standing beside the main carriage and the beautiful woman was shouting down at him. Her hands flew this way and that splattering droplets of water onto the driver’s face. She pointed back at Rook, her forefinger indicating what she demanded done.

Their dialect was unusual. Rook concentrated on the sharp, short words they used, but could make out none of it. Her voice, though beautiful and fluttery, was stern. He thought he could listen to her recite poetry for hours if the time ever arose. There was something iridescent in her voice, like a song waited just at the edge of each word.

The driver stomped his foot. Mud spat up from the cobbled road dirtying his trousers.

The woman persisted, pointing still.

Relenting, the driver clomped along the road to the fallen priest. He hissed through his teeth in disgust. Then he bent and grabbed the young man’s robe at the shoulder, dragging him like a sack of produce back to the coach. He lifted Rook, as though the young man weighed little more than a child and tossed him through the open door. Everything was spinning as he hit the floor. The carriage was carpeted and he was thankful for that though it still stung when he hit. The door slammed behind.

He found himself staring at the woman’s bare feet. Her toenails were painted pink and she had a plain silver ring on each of her smallest toes. Her soft leather shoes lay haphazardly on the floor beside her. She stood; bracing herself against the window-frame for the carriage began to move. When she gained her balance, she removed her cloak and placed it over his shoulders. She motioned to the seat across from her and Rook struggled to take it. She seated herself and smiled.

“Lauriette,” she said, pointing to her face.

He repeated her name slowly, letting his tongue mimic the pronunciation with perfection.

“Rook,” he replied, pointed at himself. His dark brown eyes fell on his finger as he did so. It was trembling. His whole body was shaking.

She repeated his name with ease.

Rook stared at her, dazed and overwhelmed. Her dress was a deep purple, fitted over her upper body. It was sewn with countless silver beads of varying shapes. The skirt was full and flowing. Her impossibly braided hair was intertwined with red ribbons. He had not seen it when she’d passed him on the road, but a circlet was upon her head. It was silver and gold entwined something only a person of noble birth would dare wear.

Her voice drew him back to her face.

“Uhm,” she started. Then in Shan-Sei she spoke: “Where are you going, priest of Kaladia?” Her words were book perfect with no trace of a regional accent.

Rook was taken aback. He tried to concentrate on an answer of some importance, but had none. Much worse, he’d not spoken in so long that he felt his voice had dried up. “I don’t know,” he replied.

“I am returning to my home in Bercelly. I can take you as far as that if you like.”

“Please,” he said.

She looked back to the window and put her hand out to catch the rain.

“The rain is a blessing.” Rook mumbled.

She continued to look out the window with a bored expression. Rook glanced around the carriage, trying not to be so blatantly rude by staring at her. If she spoke his language, then she knew he was a priest by his tattered garments, so he should strive to set an example for the temple. The carriage was comfortably padded with rich red fabric. The wood that was visible had been gilded and etched with tiny flowers. There was an open box beside her full of breads and meats. A flask of something red and wet made his mouth water.

“Are you hungry?” she asked, her lilting voice startling him.

“I’m sorry, but yes.” he replied, feeling rude at being caught staring like a dog at her food.

She placed the box in his arms. It brought her incredibly close to him. He breathed in the air about her; she was the scent of roses. He swallowed hard, his dry throat clicking for he was embarrassed again, surely he smelled of mud and earth. Her arm brushed his as she withdrew.

“There are cheeses in the wrapped packages. The meats are good and the breads were fresh in Jondah’s finest bakery this morning. The wine is unopened. I don’t drink such things. The merchant insisted I take it. Have it all.”

“Thank you.” He whispered. Rook willed himself to eat slowly. His hunger was a pain that gouged his stomach. How he’d longed for such a pleasure as food, real food, not some dried up berry that tasted like dust. As he ate, she began to talk. She didn’t look at him, yet continued to gaze out the window. She talked openly as though she were confessing.

“I’m returning home from Jondah. My father sent me there to marry. His name is Alex DuChenalle, the fat, puss-filled piggy second son of Aderick Duchenalle. Neither had the decency to look me in the eyes when I spoke. I’ll not marry such a man. I don’t need to marry any man. I will rule Bercelly myself. Father will have no choice in the matter. He will not send me away again.”

She turned away from the window to look at him. He had a mouthful of cheese.

Her brow furrowed and her eyes took on a furious nature. “Bercelly does not need a man to rule,” she hissed. Her beautiful mouth pursed.

Rook swallowed the lump of cheese to reply. “In Kaladia, the queen ruled for thirty years by herself.”

She smiled, holding back her laughter though it was clear in her eyes. His statement was exactly what she wanted to hear: far off places, in which women did things on their own, were not controlled by their fathers or husbands.

“And did she rule well?” she asked, her attention caught to the fullest.

“She did.”

“Tell me off this queen.”

“The queen was my mother,” he replied. Guilt stabbed at his heart. His memories flooded him, wearing away his grip on the situation.

Lauriette stared into Rook’s eyes a hint of concern troubling her face. She leaned close to him. Her gaze pierced his thoughts, dizzying him. “I believe you,” she said. “A prince and a priest all in one package.” A small grin spread across her lips. “But why have you left your land, why do you travel in such a poor state if you are indeed a prince?”

He looked down at his raggedy robe and traced the worn silver trim. “I was called away by, by the...” he hesitated not sure if he should mention the dark power. The dark power was forbidden in Kaladia and surely it was taboo elsewhere.

“By your religious needs?” she finished. “I’ve seen many priests from many nations go off to find God in their own way. There’s no shame in that.”

“Yes,” he agreed finding it a plausible answer if not entirely true.

“So have you found what you seek?”

Her eyes were undeniable. He felt he could have stared into those green eyes forever and been content. There was something indescribable about her. She had a power over him other than her beauty. Something in the way she looked at him bade he answer only with the truth.

“I found little.”

She sat back again, releasing him from her gaze. A weight was lifted when she looked back to the open window and he longed for her to look at him again. At that moment, he knew she had some of the dark power in her. It had sparkled from her bright green eyes, a light that not everyone could see. A light that he had seen in his own eyes late at night when he’d practiced the power in secret.

She placed her hand out the window again. Her lips turned up in a smile as the droplets pooled in her palm.

“You haven’t looked hard enough for what you seek. God, if that is what you call it, is everywhere, in the trees, the air, the sand, the sky. Look here.” She held her cupped hand before him. The rainwater was there, clean and clear. “What do you see?”

He leaned forward and peered into her hand. Rook looked but saw nothing more than water. He said as much, making her frown, which disappointed him as well for he longed to please her.

“See what power the water has,” she mumbled. With her words the puddle in her palm lifted into the air as a large round ball. It spun upon its own axis and he saw within it, as one would see in the gypsy’s crystal. It was a garden in full bloom with a fountain in its midst. Rose petals were strewn upon the fountain’s seat. She let her hand fall to her side and the water fell onto his boots with a splash.

He gasped and fell back against his seat. Not sure what to say, he only stared back into her mesmerizing eyes. She smiled her beautiful smile and returned his curious look.

“Let me show you another trick.” She held her hand out the palm facing him. “Touch your hand to mine, palm to palm.”

He swallowed back his fear and raised his hand to do as she asked. Her skin was wet and cold from the rain. But at the moment their hands met, warmth filled him. He had not realized he was so cold, but the rain had chilled his body through. Her warmth was a ray of sunlight on his skin that spread through his body. He relished it. Then he heard her voice though she was not speaking with her mouth. He was sure of it, for his eyes were on her full lips.

‘Let me know you, priest of the desert. Let me see your secrets.’

She plucked at his thoughts forcing his memories into recognition. He saw her over his mother’s deathbed. She was hovering over his shoulder in the temple when he read the ancient tomes. She was beside him when he left his brother and walked into the sands. Then the memory of the thirteen stones came to the priest and he pulled his hand away.

Staring up at her in awe, he managed a simple: “How?”

Tears welled in her eyes.

“Your mother,” she whispered. “I saw her. I know what happened. I’m sorry.”

Rook began to cry then. This was the first time he’d let his emotions have the better of him since his mother’s death. Guilt and sorrow swept over his body. He gathered her cloak around him and covered his face to hide his shame. Her hands swept over his shoulders in comfort. Then her fingers came under his chin to lift his face to hers once more.

“Let go of your pain, your terrible guilt. Sleep now,” she said. Her sad green eyes hypnotized him. He fell toward her and she caught him his head in her lap then laid him back onto his seat. Lauriette tucked her cloak around him and stroked his forehead in a tender gesture. A smile spread across her face as she realized what a fortunate find he was. His dark eyes fluttered then closed in sleep.

“You are the answer I need,” she whispered.
She watched him for a time, then turned and held her hand out the window, wondering at the difference in the rain. She doubted anyone else would notice, but she felt the power in it.