The Dragon Star (Realms of Shadow and Grace: Volume 1) Read online

  The rows of sleeping pilgrims radiated out in a spiral from her tent at the center. They did this each night in imitation of the many spiral images in the dreams. She had not asked for the tent, but her closest adviser, Raedalus, insisted upon it. He had explained that while she did not want to view herself as any more special than the men and women flocking to follow her, those men and women desired to see her as separate and removed. Approachable, human, but more important than themselves. They placed their hopes and fears and faith in her. She could not sleep among them as family. She needed to be present, but apart. A leader to be followed, not a confidant to be questioned.

  This defined the problem — the real reason she woke each night in a sweat. No one questioned her. Not the pilgrims. Not Raedalus. Not even old Taksati, her aged but indefatigable servant for the past twenty years. Taksati, who had always challenged her in private, probing her decisions through the deceptive form of simple queries, offering advice based on the experience of decades of service in the temple. Not even Taksati inquired about Junari’s choices as she led the pilgrims toward a future glimpsed nightly in their collective dreams.

  In the absence of others to question her, Junari questioned herself — doubts gripping her mind to whisper uncertainties in her ears. How did she know her actions were those intended by her new god? How could she be certain her proclamations bore the approval of this mysterious deity? How could she be the vessel for this glorious goddess working wonders in the world? How could she, who had lost her faith entirely, who had spent years pantomiming the beliefs of her younger days, imitating the import of the rites and rituals of a Pashist priest — how could she be the one chosen by the Goddess to lead her people?

  But the Goddess had selected her. When the dream first came to her, she ignored it, assuming it to be a fantasy of her desires for fulfillment. Then it came again. Night after night. So many nights that she began to wonder if she had gone mad — if her loss of faith in the Pashist pantheon of gods and goddesses had pushed her into a mind-fever of delusion. Then Taksati had confided in her. She, too, saw visions of a new goddess as she dreamt. And in those dreams, Junari led a procession of pilgrims to an ancient temple in the Forbidden Realm.

  She found this impossible to believe as more than a coincidence. She imaged that she spoke in her sleep and Taksati overheard, incorporating Junari’s phantasmal night notions into her own sleep-rendered stories. Then Raedalus came to her with his confession — he, too, dreamed of her each night. Then others in the temple. A handful at first. Then came the tales, brought by traders and penitent travelers to the temple’s blessing pools, telling of people across the Juparti Dominion dreaming the same dream. A dream where a Pashist woman priest led them to their salvation through a new female god.

  As the dreams spread, and rumors of dreamers in other dominions reached the temple, the quadrad of high priests who administered the earthly actions of her Pashist sect demanded an explanation and summoned her at dawn for questioning.

  NINE MONTHS AGO

  JUNARI FOLLOWED the senior cleric, a man she had known for years, but whose name would not come to her tongue. Vaporous, ungraspable fears clouded her mind, making common tasks seem impossible — like remembering a man’s name.

  She focused on the hem of his robes to still her thoughts, trying to calm her breathing. Every breath intended to bring equanimity only carried more apprehension and doubt. The very air of the temple gardens they walked through seemed heavy with a cloying anxiety. Rose bushes spoke to her of heresy and the punishment for usurping the high priests’ place in the inner order of the faith. Blossoms of the tinnat tree whispered the names of the false prophets denounced throughout Pashist history. Even the grass mumbled of excommunication and divine censure.

  By the time the old cleric guided her through the long, stone passage to the quadrad’s council chambers, her thoughts buzzed and rattled — a nest of wasps fallen from the branch and looking to sting. As she entered to stand before the four tanjari, the high priests, she felt the wasps migrate downward, leaving her stomach queasy, but her mind empty — a hollow and deserted hive. The quadrad’s inner chamber held four large, darkly stained wooden chairs, a contrast to the brightly polished white marble of the walls. Two tall windows let the dim dawn light into the room, oil lamps studding the support columns and complementing the illumination. Across the curved dome of the ceiling, painted gods and goddesses of the Pashist pantheon frolicked in a heavenly garden of glowing trees and luminescent ponds.

  Two men and two women comprised the quadrad, as custom dictated since the first Pashist council more than four thousand years ago. All four had seen at least sixty summers and had held every position within the hierarchy of the temple, from kitchen servant to meditative monk or nun, to pastoral guide and teacher, as the requirements of their office demanded. The eldest tanjari, Garonthus, a stern man of seventy-five with piercing blue eyes and mirthless lips, sat beside the youngest, Vadee, a woman of sixty, who still held the voluptuous beauty of her youth, her dark black skin full and fleshy, her face filled with open wonder and easy joy. The third tanjari looked concerned, staring at Junari with worried eyes, a frown creasing the loose folds of his chestnut flesh. Kananthus had been a member of the quadrad the longest and always took the most cautious stance on any quadrad rulings. The final tanjari, Pagistaa, entered the room from the back door behind the raised seats of her companions. She seemed angered, barely glancing at Junari while taking her seat. She brushed the thick mane of gray hair back from her narrow eyes and settled in her chair. Surprisingly, she voided the customary introductory prayers and began the interview without preamble.

  “What have you done now?” Tanjari Pagistaa appeared to be restraining herself from shouting. “And how have you accomplished it?”

  Junari’s wasps stung at her gut. Pagistaa had been her prefect, one of her mentors. Her demeanor did not suggest she would give Junari any preferential treatment. If her former mentor turned against her, what hope did she have of facing the other quadrad members? The tanjaries stared at her, awaiting an answer. She forced herself to speak words, any words.

  “I have done nothing.” Junari tugged at the sleeves of her robes, pulling them down, self-conscious, as always, of the scarred, pink flesh of her forearms. No need to remind the council of that incident.

  “Explain the dreams.” Tanjari Garonthus leaned forward in his chair.

  “I cannot explain the dreams.” Junari rubbed her hands across her priestly robes to absorb the sweat dampening her palms.

  “Is this some manner of The Sight?” Tanjari Vadee asked, her big eyes seeming almost cheerful with her question.

  “Are you a seer in secret?” Tanjari Garonthus asked. “Have you spread the dreams with an unknown aspect of The Sight?”

  “I am no seer,” Junari replied.

  While Pashists did not fear The Sight, and certain sects openly cultivated its development and use, the power emanating from the ability to bend reality to one’s will still left many people uncomfortable around those who possessed such an endowment. Pagistaa held The Sight, in a limited fashion. Although Junari studied the sacred texts, and once apprenticed under Pagistaa, she never found herself gifted in that manner.

  “I can vouch that the girl does not possess The Sight.” Tanjari Pagistaa frowned.

  Even though Junari had recently passed her fortieth year, Pagistaa still referred to her as “girl”. It irked Junari in that moment more than usual. She chided herself for becoming distracted by petty indignities and tried to make her mind attend to the proceedings.

  “Unless she has developed it late in life.” Tanjari Pagistaa’s gaze pierced into Junari as though testing her for truth. “Regardless, she could not manage the skill to accomplish this.”

  “How, then?” Tanjari Garonthus directed the question to Junari.

  “I do not know.” Junari took a deep breath and stepped closer to the quadrad. She would master her fears by sharing them with her superiors. “The d
reams frighten me. I don’t know where they come from or how so many people might dream the same dream each night. I do not understand why I am in the dreams. They call me to actions I dread to take. You ask from where the dreams emanate and how. I believe they are the work of this new and nameless goddess. And I fear she wants me to be her prophet.”

  “Do you wish to be a prophet?” Tanjari Pagistaa asked.

  “No.” Junari’s voice and hands trembled with her words.

  “You may have no choice.” Tanjari Pagistaa’s face filled with sudden compassion, and Junari wished she could go to her mentor and seek the comforting motherly embrace of the priest’s arms as she had done so many times as a young novice.

  “Sight by Divine intervention.” All eyes turned to Tanjari Kananthus as he spoke for the first time. He had lost the cloud of agitation that clung to him earlier and appeared calm, even happy. A light smile touched his lips. “Maybe this new goddess gives her the dream, and the power to share it with others, even if she is unaware of doing so.”

  “Perhaps,” Tanjari Vadee said.

  “And possibly, it will remain a mystery,” Tanjari Garonthus added.

  “How we came to these circumstances is not as important as what we do about them.” Tanjari Pagistaa folded her hands in her lap.

  “Send her away.” Tanjari Kananthus raised his eyes to the mural of the many Pashist gods painted across the ceiling. The wasps in Junari’s stomach buzzed and stung once more.

  “Banishment seems ill-suited to the predicament before us.” Tanjari Pagistaa’s tone sounded defensive, and Junari began to hope that her mentor might defend her.

  “Not banishment,” Tanjari Kananthus clarified. “Pilgrimage.”

  “Explain.” Tanjari Garonthus turned to his fellow quadrad member.

  “My meaning is simple,” Tanjari Kananthus replied. “If this new goddess is truly coming forth into the world, granting the same dream to thousands, beckoning them to the Forbidden Realm, naming our priest Junari as their leader, then she must follow this calling, for it is hers and hers alone to fulfill.”

  “You believe we should send her to this new god with our blessing?” Tanjari Vadee sounded amused, but not disturbed, by the notion.

  “Yes,” Tanjari Kananthus said. “I myself have had this dream. I have seen what she is to do. While I am too old to follow her, I believe we must encourage her to realize her divinely ordained destiny. No gods of the Pashist pantheon have ever spoken so clearly. We cannot say how this new god will join her fellow divine beings, but possibly, her coming will inspire more to step forward.”

  The other members of the quadrad said nothing, each considering in silence the words of their colleague. Junari, too, pondered Tanjari Kananthus’s words and their import. He believed that the new goddess calling to people across the dominion would become yet another Pashist god, potentially taking her place as the 109th official deity of the religion.

  The wasps in Junari’s stomach fell still. They seemed to die and crumble to ash, blowing away with each deep breath, replaced by a fire rising up from her belly along her spine and through the crown of her head.

  Junari saw clearly for the first time. The high priests of the quadrad would send her away. She would lead a pilgrimage of dreamers to the Forbidden Realm where she would rebuild a long-forgotten temple to welcome her new goddess. But this goddess who called her to step onto the path of a prophet would never be like the ever-silent gods and goddesses of the Pashist faith. The birth of a new goddess required a new religion.

  And Junari would be its founder.

  The heat and light blazing through her faded as Junari collapsed, fainting and falling to the floor, her mentor and spiritual guide, Tanjari Pagistaa rushing from her chair to catch the unconscious prophet.

  THE PRESENT

  JUNARI STOOD among her sleeping pilgrims, each dreaming the same dream, and looked down at her hands. She felt them trembling, although she could barely see them in the clouded light of the night sky.

  How could she live up to the demands of that calling? How could she forge a new religion? How could she lead these pilgrims she walked past as they slept? There were no sacred texts to study for guidance. Who would write the new scriptures for the new goddess? Would Junari achieve this as well? Would her words, spoken and written, be the basis for priests and believers to fashion their lives for centuries to come? How could a faithless priest leading a band of dreamers through the wilderness presume to create such a legacy?

  No. No, this untruth would not stand before her doubts. She had found her faith again. Her misgivings applied only to herself and her abilities to fulfill the desires of her goddess. In her goddess, she had not merely faith, but knowledge. No conspiracy of seers could manage to collectively use The Sight necessary to invade the dreams of so many men and women throughout the Iron Realm. Such power could only emanate from a god. Her god. The nameless goddess of her dreams made real.

  Junari stepped past the last row of sleeping pilgrims dozing beside the lane. She stared down the road, dimly illuminated beneath the clouds that blocked the double moons. The Old Border Road, called by many the Truce Road, the Peace Path, the Middle Way, a road that cut right along the boundary between the Daeshen and Tanshen Dominions. A wonder of custom more than diplomacy, the Old Border Road represented the lone sanctuary in the twenty-year war between the two nations. It also provided the only means of safe transit from the Juparti Dominion for Pashists and peoples of other faiths who wished to cross to the coast and the free city of Tanjii. A city where a leader of pilgrims might hope to find ships willing to carry her and her flock to the shores of the Forbidden Realm.

  Of course, the Old Border Road did not always prove a safe method of travel. There were bandits who raided small parties, and militias composed of Kam-Djen fanatics from both dominions adjoining the road. Militias who sought to kill the dreaming heretics crossing their lands.

  As though accustomed to pulling reality into solidity from the effervescence of her thoughts, Junari did not need to wonder at the source and cause of the woman’s scream that suddenly cut the crisp, night air.

  Kam-Djen fanatics had found her band of apostate pilgrims.

  To continue reading the Temple story arena follow this link.

  To continue reading Junari’s storyline follow this link.

  THE WITNESS

  HASHEL

  WAVES LAPPED gently against the rock-strewn beach, a ceaseless rhythm of liquid undulation. Near the water, two forms lay in repose. An old man, salt-silver hair and beard trimmed close to the dark skin of his cheeks, snored lightly beneath the folds of a crow-black cloak. Beside him curled a boy of ten, his face layered with days of dirt concealing brown flesh. A tattered shirt and stained trousers clothed his frail frame. Above the man and boy, below the twin moons, a star, new to the night sky, shone in silent coral incandescence.

  The boy stirred in his sleep, his eyes fluttering at the edge of consciousness. One eye came fully open. Then the next. The boy gasped and sat up, his eyes darting about, coming to rest on the old man, then turning back to the ocean before rising to the sky and locking on that singular point of red flame above.

  Hashel climbed to his feet, eyes wide, his chest heaving with excitement and fear. The star. The star from the dream. How could that be? Did he still sleep? Did he dream of rousing from the dream only to still stand in a dream? This happened sometimes, waking from a pleasant dream into a nightmare, before finally opening his eyes to the real world.

  A dream explained the ocean. How did he awaken next to an ocean? He and the old man had bedded down in the middle of a field far from any coast. Or was the old man a seer? Had he transported them with The Sight to some ocean shore while Hashel slept? Was that even possible?

  The old man had built a fire from twigs and dried grass, and they had feasted on a rabbit that happened to run into a nearby tree and broke its neck. It had been his first real meal in days. As he chewed the succulent meat, he had said a silent
prayer of thanks to Nag Mot Gioth, the Mother Creator and Nag Pat Gioth, the Father Destroyer, for helping his path to cross the old man’s earlier that day.

  But had meeting the old man been a blessing? Or did the old man represent a new sign of danger? His life held too many dangers. An image of his mother and father and sister, faces filled with terror, blossomed in his mind. Hashel closed his eyes, panting as his slender body shook in the pale light of the double moons.

  He opened his eyes and ran to the ocean, splashing into the shallow waves, his thin leather boots filling with seawater — salt liquid that matched the tears cutting canyons through the dirt caking his cheeks. Hashel knelt and dipped his face into the cool water, rubbing away the memories, cleansing flesh and mind with each immersion. He ran his damp fingers through his dust-matted hair. He glanced back at the old man and then kicked off his loose-fitting boots, pulled off his shirt, set down the small dagger he carried at his waist, cast away his trousers, and sank into the next wave, diving under and pushing out a few feet from shore. He stood, water near his chest, feet squirming into the soft sand below, and scrubbed his arms and legs, repeatedly dunking his head beneath the surface, massaging the filth from his long, black locks. Weeks had passed since his last bath. Back before…

  He scrubbed harder, focusing on freeing himself from the grime of the road and the ditches where he had been hiding and sleeping. Satisfied he had cleaned himself as well as possible, he returned to shore and crouched to wash his shirt and trousers in the shallows, dark clouds from dusty travel billowing out from the cloth to stain the shore-foam brown beneath the moonlight. His arms shivered as he worked, the cool air prickling his wet skin. He ignored it. He had been far colder in past days.

  After wringing out his clothes, he dressed again, brushing sand from his feet before sliding them back into his wet boots. He stood on the beach, staring up at the newborn star, feeling better than he remembered for a long time.