Chainfire (Sword of Truth 9)

In her whole life she had never seen strangers. No one but Jillian’s people ever wandered the inhospitable barrens of the vast and forbidding place known as the Deep Nothing.

She stood trembling in terror, staring at the smudge of dust at the horizon. She was about to see a great many outsiders…the ones from the stories.

But it was too soon. She hadn’t had a life yet, hadn’t had a chance to live and love and have children. Tears brimmed in her eyes, giving everything a watery appearance. She looked over her shoulder and up into the ruins. Was this what they had faced, like in Grandfather’s tellings?

Tears began to run down through the dust on her cheeks. She knew, she knew without a hint of doubt, that her life was about to change, and that her dreams would no longer be happy.

Jillian scrambled down off the top of the rubble she had been standing on and ran down the hill, past the wall, the crumbled empty squares of brick buildings, the pits where once buildings had risen up. Her racing feet raised their own cloud of dust as she ran through the ruins of what once had been outposts of an ancient city. She ran down roads that no longer had life around them, no longer were lined with standing buildings.

She had often tried to imagine what it would have been like when people had lived in the houses, when people had walked the streets, cooked in the homes, hung the wash outside their brick houses, traded goods in the squares. No more. They were all long dead. The whole city was long dead, except for the few of Jillian’s people who sometimes stayed in the most remote of the old buildings.

As she got closer to those ancient buildings of the outposts that they used when they lived in this area for the summer, Jillian saw people hurrying about, yelling to one another. She saw that they were gathering up their things and collecting the animals. It appeared they were going to move on, maybe back into the shelter of the mountains, or out onto the barrens. She had seen her people do such a thing only a few times before. The threat had always turned out to be imaginary. Jillian knew that this time it was real.

She wasn’t sure, though, if they would have enough time to flee the approaching strangers and hide. But her people were strong and swift. They were used to moving around on the empty land. Grandfather said that no one else but her people could survive so well in this forsaken place. They knew the mountain passes and places of water, as well as the hidden passages through what seemed like impassable canyons. They could vanish into the inhospitable land in short order and survive.

Most of them could, anyway. Some, like her grandfather, were no longer swift.

With that renewed fear, her feet ran all the faster, padding with a steady beat over the dusty ground. As she got closer, Jillian saw men packing their travel goods on the mules. Women collected cooking utensils, filled water containers, and carried clothes and tents out from their summer homes and storage buildings. It looked to Jillian that they had been aware of the approaching strangers for some time as they were already well advanced in their preparations to depart.

“Ma!” Jillian called out when she saw her mother packing her pot atop a mule already piled high with their belongings. “Ma!”

Her mother flashed a quick smile and held out a sheltering arm. Even though she was getting past the age for such things, Jillian nuzzled under that arm like a chick burrowing under a mother hen’s wing.

“Jillian, get your things.” Her mother shooed her with a hand. “Hurry.”

Jillian knew better than to question at a time like this. She wiped away her tears and ran to the small, square, ancient building they used as their home when they summered on the plains near the headland. The men sometimes had to replace the roofs when the worst of the weather tore them off, but, other than that, the rest of the stout, squat buildings were the very same buildings constructed by their ancestors who had once built and lived in the deserted city of Caska, up on the headland.

Grandfather, looking drawn and pale as she imagined a ghost might look, waited in the shadows just inside the door. He was not hurrying. Terror swelled in Jillian’s chest. She realized that he couldn’t come with them. He was old and frail. Like some of the other older people, he wouldn’t be swift enough to keep up with the rest of them if they were to escape. She could see in his eyes that he had no intention of trying.

She sank into her grandfather’s tender embrace and started wailing even as he comforted her.

“There, there, child,” he said, his hand stroking her short-cropped hair. “No time for this.”

Grandfather grasped her arms and eased her away as she tried her best to bring her sobbing under control. She knew that she was old enough that she shouldn’t be crying in such a way, but she just couldn’t help it. He squatted down, his leathery face wrinkling as he smiled at her and brushed away a tear.

Jillian swiped away the rest of her tears, trying to be strong and act her age. “Grandfather, Lokey showed me the strangers who are coming.”

He was nodding. “I know. I sent him.”

“Oh” was all she could think to say. Her world was turning upside down and it was hard to think, but somewhere in the back of her mind she realized that he had never before done such a thing. She’d never known he could, but, knowing her grandfather, it didn’t really surprise her.

“Jillian, listen to me. These men who are coming are the ones I always told you would come. Those who can are going away for a while to hide.”

“For how long?”

“For as long as necessary. These men who ride this way are only a small number of those who will eventually come.”

Her eyes grew wide. “You mean there are more? But there are so many. They raise more dust than I have ever seen before. There can be more strangers than these?”

His smile was brief and bitter. “These are only a survey party, I expect—the first advance scouts of many more to come. This vast and desolate land is unknown to them. I expect they are looking for routes through it, testing to see if there will be any opposition. I’m afraid that according to the tellings, the men they scout for are more in number than even I can grasp. I believe that these other men, with their uncountable numbers, are yet some time in coming, but even this advance party will be dangerous, ruthless men. Those of our people who are able must flee and hide for now.

“Jillian, you cannot go with them.”

Her jaw dropped. “What…?”

“Listen to me. The times I have told you about are upon us.”

“But, Ma and Pa won’t allow—”

“They will allow what I tell them they must, just as our people must,” he said in a stern voice. “This is about far greater matters, matters that have never before involved our people—at least not since our ancestors filled the city. Now these things concern us as well.”

Jillian nodded solemnly. “Yes, Grandfather.” She was terror stricken, but at the same time she felt an awakening sense of duty to her grandfather’s call. If he intended to trust her with such things, then she could not fail him.

“What is it am I to do, then?”

“You are to be the priestess of the bones, the carrier of dreams.”

Jillian’s mouth again fell open. “Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“But I’m still too young. I’ve not been trained in such things.”

“There is no more time, child.” He leaned toward her in admonition. “You are the one to do this, Jillian. I have already taught you much of the tellings. You may think you are unprepared, or that you are not old enough, and all that may have some truth to it, but you know more than you may realize. What’s more, there is no other. It is upon you to do this.”

Jillian couldn’t seem to make herself blink. She felt completely inadequate, and at the same time faintly excited and guardedly inspired. Her people were depending on her. More importantly, her grandfather was depending on her and he believed she could do it.

“Yes, Grandfather.”

“I will prepare you to be among the dead, and then you must hide among the

m and wait.”

Fear began to wrap its arms around her again. She had never stayed all alone among the dead.

Jillian swallowed. “Grandfather, are you sure that I’m ready for such a thing? To be there, alone, among the dead? Waiting for one of them?”

The light coming in from the open door cast his face with a forbidding look. “You are as ready as I can make you. I had hoped there would be time left to teach you many more things, but at least I have taught you some of what you must know.”