A Whisper of Wings (44 page)

***

Shadarii sat in meditation beside a broken rock. Her eyes were closed, her fur dulled, her lips were parched and dry. Even so, the girl sat utterly oblivious to the world.

She let her mind wander with the desert breeze. She felt the sands and scorching heat - the careful patterns that the flies wove above her ears. A gecko’s eggs lay buried in the dust beneath her tail. Sun and sand, earth and air… Shadarii reached out and let herself merge with her world.

Even here there was beauty; amongst the dust, Shadarii she had found wonder. A desert sunset, the desert moon - dead twigs etched against an endless sky. Shadarii had learned to understand this place, and in so doing, she had discovered love.

Shadarii shivered as she felt the power flow. She was the Chosen One, and all her sufferings were to a purpose; Kotaru, the hunger, the loss, the guilt, the pain. She must suffer and scourge herself. When the answers finally came, she must be pure enough to see.

Why? Why do people need to fight and kill?

She felt tired; the answers stayed as far away as ever. Perhaps she simply searched too hard? Shadarii heaved a sigh and wearily brought her mind back to the here and now.

The others were waiting for her. Shadarii opened up her eyes as Kïtashii bowed and looked worshipfully up into her face.

“Shadarii-Zha, there are ruins on the horizon. Tingtraka can see them from an outcrop of rocks. They lie a little distance from our chosen path. Shall we go and see?”

Shadarii eagerly leapt up to her feet, and the other pilgrims scrabbled in her wake. Shadarii cheated and opened up her wings to fly. Only she had power enough to bear up her own weight. She skimmed mere inches off the sand, laughing as she left her squawking followers behind.

A noise intruded into Shadarii’s mirth. She snatched her head around in shock to find Kïtashii flapping madly at her tail. Shadarii beamed and led her little follower out across the desert sands.

A line of ruins appeared on the horizon. Shadarii and her student landed on a ridge of rock, soft wings flipping in amazement as they stared in awe at their discovery.

A shallow dustbowl had been scooped clean from the desert soil. There were ruins at the far rim of the valley - great, mysterious towers made of stone. The corners were blurred by groaning centuries of sand and wind. The buildings stood there like the skeleton of some enormous beast - jagged bones thrusting up against the desert sky.

The girls had never seen so many buildings in their entire lives. There must be thousands of them, clustering like trees inside a forest. Who could have built it, and why? There was hardly enough ïsha to lift a mouse. How could anyone live when it was impossible to fly?

The valley looked as though it had been dipped out of the ground with a giant spoon. Kïtashii stared in astonishment at the centre of the valley, where a stand of spinifex wavered in the breeze.

“Water! Look Shadarii, there’s water! And trees, and shade!” She turned to wave the other pilgrims into greater speed! “A pool! I can see a pool!”

The youngster stormed over to the water and plunged her whole head into pool. She erupted out mere seconds later, choking out a curse.

“Salt! Damn!”

The little girl kicked out at the rocks in disappointment. Shadarii wandered over and gave an idle shrug. A salty pool was no disaster - they had encountered them before. Shadarii could heat the water and turn it into steam. They could collect the vapour against a cone of leather clothes and drip it down into their water gourds. The teacher grinned as the other pilgrims wandered over to her side.

<>

There would be grubs amongst the spinifex and juicy scorpions in the rocks; it was a veritable garden! They could scour the area for supplies before moving on. Shadarii thanked sweet Rain for the opportunity to rest.

But first, there were the buildings; Shadarii felt a delicious shiver of anticipation. While half the group collected food, Shadarii took the others up the slopes towards the ruins. The pilgrims moved between the towers and passed into a land of silence.

The wind dropped away, and the air became cool against the skin. Pilgrims shivered and drew themselves closer together. Footsteps fell quietly in the sand while towers leaned in about them like the edges of a grave.

Shadarii cautiously approached a piece of broken wall. She picked at it with her claw, staring in fascination as she watched the material crumble.

Mud. They were made of mud!

She threw back her head and stared into the sky where tower tops etched dark lines against the blue. There was a sense of motion, almost as if she were falling. The girl gazed up in wonder, trying to imagine just how heavy such a tower would be. Kïtashii pointed up to doors high above the ground and whispered quietly in awe.

Shadarii’s ears flicked. She was sure there must be something here. Perhaps a few last spirits lurked somewhere in the dust. She shivered and tried to turn her back, her senses prickling. It was not so much a sense of danger. Merely one of… anticipation.

The group slowly roamed between the towers, running hands across the age old stone and mud. The laneways led in towards the centre of the maze, and finally Shadarii’s pilgrims climbed across the fallen brickwork and stared out into a wide patch of open ground.

A circular clearing had been blasted from the sand, and the nearby towers lay shattered into pieces. Broken walls gleamed like ice, fused into position by a blade of heat.

A gigantic carved image lay at the centre of the clearing - a vast, weirdly shaped piece of graven soapstone. Shadarii turned her head sideways and found herself peering at a titantic face.

A Kashra! They had found the fallen statue of a Kashra!

Kïtashii clambered up between the figure’s ears and grinned down at her friends. Suddenly her nostrils flared, and she almost drooled in greed!

“There’s meat grilling! The others must have found food. Should we go back?”

Meat - real meat! The pilgrims surged straight back towards the waterhole. Shadarii reluctantly looked back towards the statue, feeling as though she had left a task undone.

The dancer paused for one last moment, her antennae questing quietly. She finally turned away and led her companions back towards the valley.

Hours later, Shadarii lay back in her sleeping robes and stared up at the stars. There were no leaves to hide the starscape, no forest mists to sheath the world in clouds. For Shadarii the desert sky had become a source of endless fascination.

The travellers had bathed and rested, and fat goanna lizards roasted in the coals. In the middle of the desert peace, Tingtraka simply began to speak. She stared into the flames and let her thoughts drift with the smoke as her voice rose and whispered in the wind.

“The stars here are beautiful. When I was a little girl I’d climb high atop a tree and see them. Not as many as this, but still, I saw a few. The priests say that at night you can hear stars whispering in their dreams.”

Tingtraka stared up into the night.

“I was going to be a priest. Did you know that? From the time that I was small I always knew that I would be a priest. I wanted to help, you see. I wanted to do something good for everyone.

“That was always my problem. I only wanted to help.”

The girl sadly trailed a finger down her throat. She swallowed hard, trying to change memories into words.

“Mama went away. She went off with another man and left my Papa all alone. He cried so hard I thought his heart would break. It was alright, though. I understood. I hurt, too. It-it was as if Mama had said she never really loved me. Papa and I just held each other and cried and cried for hours.

“It was only just the two of us together. We were everything each other had. Oh Rain but I loved that man! He was so good to me. Father traded spare food and got me nice clothes and little presents. I think he was sorry that he couldn’t be with me more. It was alright though, I understood. You do, you know, even if you’re only eight years old. I tried to keep the house for him just like Mama should have done.

Tingtraka kept her face towards the fire. If she wept, the others would never know; only Shadarii could see her eyes, and Shadarii would not tell.

“He was everything I loved in the whole wide world! My Papa. My Papa…” Tingtraka’s voice caught. “I adored him! My whole world. He was all the love I’d ever known!

“I-I suppose you’d call it rape. Sometimes I don’t know. One night he came home crying, I went to him, and he held me. He told me how much he loved me. For a long time he just held me close and said how much he loved me…

“Papa told me what he needed. He said only if I wanted to - only if I didn’t mind. He said he loved me and that it was something very special. Something very special to make him feel good again. I-I loved him! I couldn’t bare to see him cry. I told him yes. I just closed my eyes and let him, and never even tried to get away.”

The girl’s fists clenched in the air.

“It hurt! Oh Rain but it hurt! He tried to be gentle, but it almost tore me clean in two! I tried not to let him hear me scream. He needed me! How could I fail my Papa?

“All the while it happened, he kept saying how much he loved me. I think that was what hurt me most of all…”

Kïtashii stared at the girl in horror. Tingtraka spoke on into the silence, her voice sounding strangely tired.

“It happened again after that. A week later he was touching me again. I knew what he wanted without his even telling me. I cried, but he held me in his arms and said what a good girl I was for him. Somehow it made it seem worthwhile; he still loved me.

“I was frightened, you see. Mama had gone. I thought Papa wouldn’t leave me if I was good.

“He started to do it to me more and more. Soon I knew more about sex than any little girl should know. Sometimes I sat in class and cried. Everyone just said that I was strange inside my head. No one ever thought to find out what was really happening…

“One day I woke up and knew I had to tell somebody. I went and asked the Priests if it had been wrong to do what my father wanted. The Priests were very kind. They sent my father off to the healers. He was sick, you see. Papa never wanted to hurt me. He simply couldn’t help himself.

“The Priests raised me. I’ve never seen my father since. Years later I grew old enough to see the horror of just what he had done. I didn’t ever want to see him again.”

“No. The thought of sex still makes me sick; it utterly revolts me.” Tingtraka turned dry eyes towards Mrrimïmei and her lover. “And then-then I see you two. I see what love can be and I’m ashamed.

“Shadarii took my hand and lets me cry the pain away. We sat there for hours and hours one night, she listening, me talking. And when I was done, the agony had gone. I had never felt so free in all my life…

“There’s no sense in letting the past destroy the present. Someday I’ll find a man to love. There’s no hurry; if it’s right, then it will happen. Shadarii helped me see. I’m going to visit Papa when we return. I want to let him know that I forgive. If I ever loved him, then I can give him that small gift. I can never be with him again, but I can take away his pain.

***

Late that night, the pilgrim’s camp lay still and silent. The towers loomed like gigantic fingers overhead. No wind blew, no ïsha stirred; not a single insect chirped in the dark. It seemed as though the ruins lay waiting for their prey.

Shadarii padded stealthily through the dust, following the footsteps left earlier in the day. Sand felt cool and soft beneath her feet. The scent of heat still clung against the stones. Shadarii flowed through the ruins like a shadow, all lithe, soft lines and thirsting curiosity.

The mighty statue lay as it had fallen - a handsome figure slowly drowning in the dust. Shadarii’s antennae quivered; she sensed something - something hidden. Something interesting…