Gods and Empires: Jewel (Chapter 1)

Kashe

         The mother held her mewling babe to her chest with a trembling arm, exhaustion taking over her body. The midwife’s apprentice bustled forward and took the furry bundle in her arms, smiling down into the amber eyes of the kitling. Although having just been born, the black, fuzzy stripes on its forehead were beginning to show, arching together and marking its noble birth.

         Settling down into a round-backed chair, the apprentice rocked the babe and ran a fingertip over the kitling’s brow. “You are Chosen, little one,” she whispered. “You will be strong, My Daughter.” The child gazed up into soft, emerald orbs and yawned, waving one tiny fist. “Oh yes, you will. So have faith and courage, child.”

          Crooning, the apprentice rocked the kitling until she fell asleep and then swiftly lay her down in the bassinet beside her mother. After one last look, she slipped from the hut, stopping just outside the door. A light wind rippled her long black hair and fluffed up the tawny fur on her face and arms. Emerald eyes flashing, she lifted her face to the sky and spoke as if two voices came from the same mouth. “I Choose this one, oh God of Chaos. She is Mine!” Thunder crashed in answer, startling those within the hut. Kashiera, Avatar of the Goddess Sharess, nodded in satisfaction and quickly disappeared into the surrounding forest.

****

         My mother always told me that when I came into the world the light that shone from me dimmed the sun. I realized later that she could not have seen the sun because I was born at night, but it always made me smile. What I remember most about her is that she would crouch down in front of me, her brilliant green eyes shining with love and affection as she whispered that my destiny was written in the stars - that I would do great things.

         Mostly, my parents filtered through my childhood. Mother and Father were Rusjan, or healers; they were gone most of the time, taking care of the injured and the occasional sicknesses. However, when they were free, they made sure to spend as much time with my siblings and me as possible. Father always had a funny anecdote to cheer the days, and Mother was always ready with a welcoming smile and hug.

         My sister, Corrina, and my brother, Rhys, were happy to have another sibling and we spent many good times together. Coco, as I called Corrina, would usually let me tag along with her to the temple. She was studying to be a priestess and would teach me some of the ways of the Rushani, the Order of Kashiera. The other times I would watch her giggle and purr at the older males, sliding her tail over their legs, and think, with a small shudder, how disgusting boys were.

         Except for my brother, Rhys, of course. He taught me how to hunt and shoot a bow. To kill cleanly and take only what was needed to survive. He was training to become a Rushan, a warrior, and spent endless hours teaching me patience and silence, mildly rebuffing me when I chased off game with a misplaced step.

         I remember the day he came to me while I was weaving mats. His emotions were hidden; he did not want me to know what he was thinking. “We hunt, Kita,” he rumbled. His voice raised a little at the end, for he was nearing the day of his Minority and many bodily changes were occurring.

          Jumping up from where I was weaving and grabbing the bow that I never left far behind, I grinned at the nickname he had given me. It confused me when he shook his head. “No, Kashe. Today, we hunt as true Rushanji hunt.” Though the outside world called us Rokestians, we called ourselves Rushanji. The Rushanji hunted with claws and teeth. Not weapons. The excitement flooded back into my system so fast that my heart almost jumped through my chest. A real hunt!

         That first time, I floundered through the forest like a wounded elephant. I attacked anything that moved in my sight, including a ferocious zuna, which made sure to leave its atrocious scent buried in our fur. Long was the day and many, many mistakes occurred, but as the sun went to rest and the moon awoke, we arrived back in the village proudly carrying a deer carcass.

         We were limping, sore, missing tufts of fur from encounters with various unhappy animals, and stinking worse than the Gas Swamps. As I stood there with my friends and family exclaiming over my prowess as a true huntress, my brother, his appearance due to my errors in judgment, smiled and lifted clasped hands over his head in a sign of victory.

         It is one of the greatest memories of my life. The pride on his face and the joy in his eyes. For me.

         A little after my eighth birthday I started seeing a little blur of black in the corner of my eye. I heard voices whispering my name in the dark of night. Out of concern and not a little bit of fear, I turned to the only one I thought could help.

         With shaking knees and raised fur, I went to Lead Elder Sha’vess, the head of the village. My voice trembling, I told him of my fears, my sleepless nights, strange dreams, and visions.

         His bright blue eyes, ancient in his youthful face, shone with a disturbing light as he looked at me, and then through me. “Kashe.” I can still remember the jolt I felt that first time when he said my name in his deep, rumbling purr of a voice. “There is nothing to fear from what you see. It is only tricks of the mind.” He placed his hand on my forehead, then slowly took it away, nodding. “You will rest tonight, kitling.” Saying no more, he stepped past me, heading toward his hut. At the time, it seemed odd to me that he could be so sure about my fears, but I had a child’s faith in the strength of her Elders.

         Truly, that night was my first restful sleep in months, and I thought that would be the end of it. However, for some reason he took an interest in me and spoke to my parents, telling them he would take over my teachings.

          After the initial shock I slipped easily into my new life; I still learned from my siblings, and then went to Sha’vess to learn different skills. With his guidance, I became proficient in Common, the trade language for most of the known world. He introduced me to Elder Lafuss, the exotic white tiger, who taught me how to open myself to the Goddess and about herbal lore. My life was filled.

         A happy childhood, to be sure, full of love and laughter. Although sadness touched my life as it does any other, it was only briefly. If I had known what was coming, I would have loved them better. My family. My dear ones. The happiness would end all too soon.

****

         “Rusjan! Rusjan! Come quickly!” Someone pounded on the door of our hut, yelling for Mother and Father. I watched with wide eyes as my parents rushed to the door, still scrambling into their clothes. Both wore vests and pants of Healer white; Mother was having problems with the ties of her pants.

         Father opened the door and I recognized one of the Rushan warriors. “What is it, Goy’han?” asked my mother, grabbing her medical case.

         “A human male…found in the forest on the outskirts of the village. He is burning with fever. Alioth thinks he might be dying.”

         “A human?” Father’s brow rose. “It’s been years since any human has ventured past our sentry lines.” I knew, even at sixteen, the prejudice that some had against other species. Few Rusjan would be willing to tend to him. Mother, noticing the frightened looks on our faces, took the time to smile and wrap her arms around us, purring to comfort us. My heart slammed against my chest like a wild thing, and I could see the same panic in my siblings’ eyes. We hugged her back all the harder for it.

         Watching them disappear into the night my fur stood up on my body and a shiver of dread rushed through me. I could not explain why I was so afraid, but, at my whimpering, Corrina wrapped her arms around me and rocked me until I quieted.

         We watched the door together as night turned into early dawn. Our parents came back, exhausted but elated. “He survived,” Father said, ruining his triumphant look by yawning. “He was grateful, though he could not understand all the fuss about something so small as the….” He worked his mouth around the word. “The flu.”

         The next afternoon my parents were called upon again. Alioth, the sentry that had originally found the man, was sick. His body burning with fever, he spoke of blood, pain, and death, and his screams of fear haunted the village as my parents left to help him.

         They returned home at early dawn, their faces drawn and depressed. Corrina took one look at their grim faces and her arms tightened around Rhys and me. “He didn’t make it,” she whispered. Rhys moaned, burying his head in her shoulder. Alioth was a friend of his. Shortly after my parents laid their heads on their pillows, they were called for again, along with the other Healers.

         At first, except for Alioth, only the very old or very weak became sick, dying quickly in their sleep. Then the babies were hit, burning with what we started calling the “ey’re”, the inner fire. One by one they died.

         The fevers spread, burning through our village the same way it did our people. While the healers got no rest as they moved from one hut to another, the Rushani priests and priestesses pled with Kashiera to come to our aide. The Rushani made trips back and forth to the temple, half a day’s walk away. Though the prayers were heart-felt and sent often, She turned a deaf ear and hundreds more died through the next year and a half. The healers were only able to help ease the suffering; no cure could be found. Some died quickly while others took weeks. Precious few survived, many more did not.

         The ey’re raged through my homeland, wreaking havoc along its path. Ravaged bodies, killed by the fever, piled ever higher: temples of wretchedness built for some malicious god of pain and suffering. My heart clinched and my guts twisted each time I left the hut, but I could do nothing. I could only watch - a pale shadow of life in a village of death.

         Once the Elders decided to burn the houses of those who were struck in an effort to contain the sickness, the very gates of the Underworld opened upon our once peaceful village. Bonfires that had once been huts sent up clouds of acrid smoke that burnt my nose and eyes. And after… oh goddess, after the fires took hold the thick sickeningly sweet smell of flaming flesh coated everything in stomach-wrenching oil. I could not get away from it. There was no way to stay clean. Everything was covered in mournful gray and black.

         I watched, gagging, as my friends turned to smoke and ash. Their bodies snapped and crackled as the fires burned. Each popping sound, each whiff of cooked flesh, and every cry that silenced as another died tore at my heart and mind.

         Teana, as close to me as my own sister, lost a brother and newly born sister in the same night. Together, we watched her family’s hut burn with our arms tight around each other. Sobs racked her body and I held her as close as I could, but, though I could feel the tears on my cheeks and sorrow clawed my chest, I felt a great sense of relief. It was not my family…

         Though I could do little, my family was a different matter. At twenty-four and twenty-one respectively, Corrina and Rhys were placed on clean up duty. Each day they rose and went through the village, digging trenches and burying the debris from the burned houses. At the end of their shifts, they made their way back to the hut and tried to forget. The moans of the dying, the wails of survivors, the appalling sight of our village burning to the ground… such terrors crept into our dreams like thieves in the night, stealing away our innocence and staining our souls an ugly red.

         We slept little, but our parents slept even less. Each time that our father came home, he looked more ragged and drawn, his tail dragging wearily, so tired he could barely move. Each time we would help him into bed beside our mother, who always came home just before him, and cover them up before tiptoeing out.

         One night after we tucked them in, we sat in the living area, whispering amongst ourselves. My siblings were exhausted from lack of sleep and their murmurs were becoming more and more nonsensical. Though I had not been resting either, my eyes would not close and I could not catch my breath. My mind and body were frozen, and my heart beat frantically against my chest, struggling to free itself from its confines. It felt as though I were standing at the edge of a great precipice, knowing that I would be pushed.

         I would like to say that it was unnaturally cold, silent, but the chill inside me made no difference to the day, and the now common chorus of screams outside continued. There was no in-drawn breath; there was no moment of silence and the world did not stop moving, but even with all the outside noise, we still heard the sound of that first, tiny cough coming from our parents’ room.

         I felt my heart flip in a slow, painful thud and I thought my chest would explode from the strain. Tears welled in my eyes and rolled down my cheeks. I could not stop my body from curling around the ball of agony that ripped into my soul.

         Corrina pulled me close, wiping away tears I could no longer feel. Our eyes met in that darkened room and we held our breaths, waiting, praying. “They’re just tired and worn out,” Corrina whispered to me, pulling me closer. “That’s all. Just tired and worn out.” I could hear the lie in her voice and still I believed. I needed to believe.

         Suddenly it was our home that the Healers converged on. They hurried in and out with their eyes bleak, their actions speaking of quiet desperation. The words that no one dared speak nonetheless floated in the air. “We do what we can, but there is no hope.”

         A week after that first tiny cough we were huddled in the corner trying to stay out of the way of the Healers and I heard Coco stifle a cough. A strange feeling of dual reality filled my being; it felt like I was both inside my body and outside of it, watching with wide, knowing eyes. Slowly turning my head, I looked my sister over carefully, truly taking her in for the first time in weeks. One look at her burning cheeks and too-bright eyes and I knew. With hysterical laughter threatening to explode, I turned to Rhys.

         Now awakened my eyes picked up signs that I had not seen before. Maybe refused to see. My brother, always so big and strong, had lost considerable weight; his tail and ears hung listlessly. Faint tremors shook him even as I watched, tears streaming down my cheeks. My parents. The thoughts came slowly, but they shook loose the foundations of my soul. And now Coco and Rhys. My family.

         “No.” I shook my head angrily and I could feel my features pull into a glare; I pled with them. “You can’t be sick,” I whispered to Rhys. “You can’t be, Coco.” Looking at them both, I felt myself crack a little, just a little, and madness seep through. “You’re all I have left.”

         “Kashe…” Corrina lifted trembling arms and embraced Rhys and me. “You can’t spend months cleaning up after a disease and expect to stay untouched. We have done our best to keep clean, to keep our mouths covered and to wash thoroughly. But we can’t fight what we don’t understand.”

         Don’t leave me, I screamed silently, rocking back and forth. Don’t leave me. Alone.

         Pushing away from them, I scrambled to my feet. “Why?” I shouted down into their faces. “Why?” My body shook as I railed at them. “Why did you move the bodies into huts instead of letting them burn where they fell? Why didn’t you tell the Elders no when they asked you to help?” A sob rose in my throat and I gagged on it, forcing it back. “Why did our parents have to be the ones to help the human!”

         Then, to my sorrow and endless shame, I cursed them. “Goddess damn them!” I screamed, “Why did we stay!” My gut churned and twisted against the words, bringing me to my knees.

         Rhys - kind, beloved Rhys - leaned back against the pillows with a cough. “They are damned already, Kashe…” he whispered, “as are we all.”


         Time was cruel. Where countless others had died quickly it seemed to take years to burn through my family. Several nights I sat alone in the front room of our hut, sobbing as I listened to the painful hacking that echoed through the hut. I railed at the Gods to take me too, I did not want to live without my family…and still, I stayed hale and whole.

         After a week of sickness, Coco pulled herself out of bed, startling me where I sat in the doorway of the hut. She had been ravaged by the ey’re; a wasted skeleton. “What are you doing?”

         She pulled herself up straight. I have never understood where she got the energy. “Kashe,” she said, her words rasping, “I can’t die here. I won’t.” Forcing herself to move through the room she came toward me, her tone pleading as tears wet her eyes. “I don’t want to be burned like the rest.”

         Her voice had dropped down to a choked whisper, but the words rang like a shout in my ears, echoing in the emptiness of my mind. Burned like the rest… I gagged on the thought. Visions of my sister burning, screaming for me to help her as her beautiful fur went up in flames, her cheek bubbling down to shiny skull… madness built in my throat, urging me to scream.

         Corrina heard nothing but my silence. “I’m leaving, Kashe. I’m going to die out in the forest, among nature’s family.” I wanted to force her back into bed, as if that would make a difference, but I held still. “I’m sorry I have to leave you, Kita. I wish…” Her voice caught and I finally reached out to touch her thin shoulder.

         “I understand. I love you.” What more could I have said? What more could I have done?

         The gratitude in her eyes was enough as she nodded. “I love you too, Kashe. I will always be with you…here.” She touched over my heart with one trembling hand and then my beloved sister struggled towards the forest to die in peace, away from watching eyes full of pity.

         Tears blurred my vision. My heart was breaking, and each drop that fell was a testimonial to loss. A shadow blocked the sun from my back and I turned. Lead Elder Sha’vess stood behind me, watching Corrina, a heavy cloud of sadness in his bright blue eyes. “Your sister would have made a fine Rushani, Kashe. She was very brave.” There was a kindness in him that I had never seen before. “I grieve with you for your loss. Your parents…they will be sorely missed.”

         The gentleness undid me. Fire rose from within, burning away the sorrow and pain until I was left with nothing but rage. “They aren’t dead,” I screamed, clenching my fists, “they aren’t dead!”

         He shook his head sadly, tears wetting the tan and orange fur of his cheeks. “The moment they first coughed, Kashe, they died. Only a few have survived once they caught the disease. And your family was too tired and worn to fight it.”

         His ears and tail drooped further, but I denied his sorrow as I did his words and lashed out with all the anger I held within me. “Why did you help me when I came to you? Why did you ask my…” I stopped, choking on the word, and then forced it past clenched lips. “…family if you could train me?” Blood rushed to my cheeks and my throat strained with the effort as I screamed at him. “What good are your teachings when I can do nothing?” I sobbed, dropping to my knees. I looked up at him then, and the truth spilled from my lips like vile poison. “My family is dying,” I whispered, “and I can do nothing.”

         He did not answer. His shoulders bowing inward and his face twisting into a rigid mask of pain, he whirled and ran, blue cloak snapping behind him.

         Silence had finally descended, broken only by a few pitiful wails and the constant crackling of flame. As the torches set fire to my home, I stumbled past more visions of horror, death, and pain. I saw none of it. My tears were icicles, each a memory frozen in time; the disease-ravaged faces of my beloved family stared from each one, mocking me in my sorrow, cursing me for letting them die. Cursing me for living.

         The clawed hands of grief ripped into my chest as I fell to the ground in front of one of the great doors of the shadurth, weeping silently, unable to give voice to the unending pain of loss. Memories of my family as I had seen them last played cruelly through my mind, over and over again, the record of death as infinite as the pain. Their ravaged faces, drawn tight with agony and the disease, bodies wasted away. Shuddering, I huddled into a ball on my side, sobbing as the angry voices of the other survivors rose around me.

         The survivors cursed Kashiera for not coming to our aide, for letting so many suffer and die. The Elders argued with them but to no avail; they continued their barrage of angry words. They cursed and denounced Her, shaking their fists at the sky, swearing that never again would the Words of the Goddess be heard within the village. The more they yelled the more loss I felt, and the Goddess Kashiera slowly turned Her back to us, closing Her ears against their words.

****

         Sekra smiled evilly across the starry Essence at His Opponent. “And so the game truly begins, Sssharess,” He hissed. “And already you are losing.” Glee filled His malicious soul; Her people were dying and She was forced to watch and do nothing save play the game. Ah, rules, He thought, sometimes they do come in handy.