CHAPTER 2
Sajjan placed hefty hands behind a narrow neck and leaned back in his chair. He might have toppled, had he not kept thick leather boots of freshly shined black firmly planted under the table’s gold-inlaid edge. “Well, now that we have the negativity out of the room, maybe decisions can be made.”
Jabari swiped cold sweat from a rising cheek. Commitment to Five Virtues and his calling, the calling they all shared so tore at him, so cried out that he follow Sophrena and Olev, just walk out. But he could not. As much as he might not like the options that his brethren obviously felt left them, he could not walk away from them. “They make good argument. We would really have to be certain that this is the thing to do. In a thousand Haerfests, never has an E’epan thought to interfere in this way.” Jabari shared their fears of what lay ahead but he could not allow that fear to drive them to destruction. “How would we do it?”
“Before we could even think of how, we would have to think of who. Who could we choose to take his place? What Olev says is true.” He had left the room but a Balancer’s ageless wisdom could not be overlooked. Hapaku wrung plump hands in thought. “There is no one left in humanity who could rule, noone alive who could begin to understand the complexities of such a task.”
“Why not one of us?” Dirwan spoke lightly, tossing loosened curls off one shoulder and swiping her brow.
Jabari could not believe she had spoken those words. But he knew well she had not been the only one at the table for whom this thought had grazed the mind. Somehow it felt good to have it out into the room as contrary to the Charge as it might be. Someone had to be brave enough to say the words that no one at that table dared speak, but he could not entertain the thought for a moment. That was simply not what they had been called to do.
After a pause, Dirwan continued. “We know this land. We know these people” Her voice hung in the air. Not immediately shot down, she continued. “We understand law and rule. More than most Kings and Queens, Councilors and Qi’s I might add. It is part of our training.”
Silence held them.
Jabari swiped a heavy hand across shining brow and released a puff of air from his cheeks. “I understand what you are saying, Builder. But it gives me a very bad feeling. This is absolutely against the Charge given to us upon the Mount. It’s like mixing Sho-sho and Scuntiweed.” The Healer Jabari pondered the thought. “Both very useful instruments of healing but put them together; you’ll make a man go blind. Ruling is not something we should do.” Jabari shifted in his seat, preparing to follow Olev and Sophrena’s lead. Maybe he had staid too long. He just did not want to be a part of a discussion that included making an E’epan a King.
Dirwan’s eyes lay in pensive thought. Curls crept upon her cheeks like a pit of serpents. Her smile beamed through the maze. “What if only for a time? A Regent of sorts. Just until one could be found.”
Sajjan did not immediately dismiss the idea. “With Ruric gone, we could move about freely, without fear. We could really find that one who could lead us in the modern world.” He returned all four feet of his chair to the ground. “Imagine, Jabari, you could set up schools of the healing arts rather than instruct from the shadows. Dirwan could design great cities to protect and help the poor. Hapaku could freely visit the human land, share her knowledge and wisdom cultivating the land and bringing forth a good Haerfest. All can prosper.”
Hapaku apparently liked the thought of it. “It is not right the way E’epans are treated in Aletheia. You deserve honor and respect but since the rule of Ruric has begun, you fear for your very lives. Honor and Respect for the E’epans of Aletheia, I say. Back to your rightful place. As myself, Olev and Sophrena are honored in Brocacia, so should you four be,” Hapaku stopped as a lump came to her throat. Her gubazo ridge flared across one plated cheek. She scraped away a tear. “Three.” She corrected her misspeaking, Lucius no longer among them. “We’ll bring honor to Lucius by returning the E’epans of Aletheia to their rightful place.”
Joy filled Dirwan’s face. “Walking about freely is something I’ve not done in a very long while.” The Builder played the soft lace upon her wrist across her cheek. “Healer, is it wrong that I covet the freedom that such an act might promise. It will only take one of us ruling for a short time. I could have a proper escort of pretty maidens and dashing young gentlemen, not a small army with me at every moment. I could live in a palace with beauty around me, not a dark tower in the forbidding Angharad Forest where the only thing of beauty I might see is of my own conjuring and will always fade in time.”
“A vote then?” Sajjan spoke with some conviction. The Artist appeared ready to do this. “We have hidden in the shadows for too long.”
Jabari did not like the haste with which they moved to this decision. “Should we not wait for Sophrena and Olev to…?”
Hapaku cut in. “They would never take part in this. But like you said, Sajjan, it’s not our land that is of immediate concern. If you three are of one mind I will support it and I cast my lot with the humans. Many Haerfests have brought us together to this place. I would think any of you a capable leader for the land for a time.”
“A vote.” Dirwan laid her left hand upon the table with open palm and fingers curled slightly, signaling that she wished a vote to begin.
“A vote.” Sajjan did the same.
Healer Jabari suddenly felt queasy. The three looked to him. What was he to do? He could not say that the prospect of again being held in a place of esteem in the land did not have appeal, but at what risk. Doing something that their father’s father’s fathers going back to that day on the Mount had been forbidden to do. He knew what he had to do and he would do it. He extended his left hand and placed a firm palm down on the table.
Hapaku sighed. Jabari could not say if it arose from relief that she did not have to be the nay-sayer or purely exhaustion.
Dirwan smiled an understanding smile, patting Jabari on the shoulder as she rose. “I guess it's dinner time. I’m going to wash up.” She wiped a cold sweat from her brow.
Sajjan pushed himself and chair from the table. As the chair shifted out past the rug, it raked across the floor.
Dirwan grabbed her ears as it echoed through the room.
Sajjan surrendered a look of apology for the offense and stood up, arms out and up, stretching. As the Artist extended a narrow neck back, dark hair flew out as if by a great wind, hung in the air for a moment and then dropped into place as he regained his poise. He walked toward the door. “Call me for dinner.”
Dirwan nodded, before looking back to the table that the three humans had just left, chairs all in disarray. Dirwan shook her head in disapproval. She shifted her hand in their direction and they all lifted and moved forward into place.
Hapaku, still seated let out a little squeal as her chair rattled beneath her. She stood and moved toward the door and her chair became one with the table.
Only Lucius’ chair remained. No need existed. It lay shattered on the stone. Dirwan sighed under her breath. “We will avenge you, my brother, we will avenge.” She turned, smiling to Jabari as she swayed across the marble with windows to her left and a row of intricately carved columns to her right.
Finally, he stood alone, in that vast place where plans had been laid for generations past. They were all such a small part of the E’epan legacy. Yet what they thought to do could change the course of modern existence. Change their role in society forever. He hoped they could make the right decision whatever that might be.
His mind wandered to the image of his impetuous, young First Guard, Ren’ai. How many times had she sought revenge for what had happened to her family at the hand of the one who had now been named Lucius’ murderer? How many times had Jabari swayed her from such thought? Warned her of the dangers of a vengeful spirit? Disparaged her fanciful thoughts of the E’epans removing King Ruric from power, naming another?
And yet, here he found himself among the descendants of those called upon the Mount named E’epa nearly
one thousand Haerfests past, those upon whom great gifts had been bestowed, those who had been called by the last god departed to be teachers and protectors, those who were said to uphold the Five Virtues, contemplating such an act. Throwing away everything that they stood for. Everything they had been called to be to avenge their fallen brother, to avert a prophecy long feared by their kind, to name one among them Ruler of Aletheia.
They had endured so much at the hand of King Ruric, but had the Healer not told Ren’ai from the time she was just a young apprentice, “Revenge. It seems a thing to right a wrong, but destroys the avenger no less than the focus of her wrath. It is a path I would advise you not to follow.” He could not say why then he now considered breaking, this, his most valued creed. He could not say, but the fact remained, he had not immediately purged the thought from a turmoil- ridden mind as he had insisted time and again his apprentice must do. And for that he could call himself a hypocrite, but when during Ruric’s reign had life not been a contradiction, fighting to teach, killing to heal. The times defined him. Maybe the times needed a new kind of E’epan. Maybe these times called to them, shaped all of them, as rigid as they might be, into something more.