Violya

Chapter 5 Violya-2

A stunned silence greeted this pronouncement.

Zecky’s pencil paused in mid scrawl. She squeezed it so tight in her fist it snapped. “Ramya gave the peons a sniff of power and they turned against her, sided with the Dromedars and traitorous Peqkians. They should be treated with more severity not more leniency. Allowing useless peens to live goes against everything Peqkya stands for. This cannot be allowed to happen.”

“Here, here,” Omya said.

“Scrap the usefulness tests…” Naomya, the Mother of Mothers who ran the pens and the peen usefulness tests, said, and stared out the window, bewildered.

“Issee,” Joz uttered and her hands flew to her cheeks.

Chaz, a eunuch by his own hand to demonstrate his devotion to Peqkya and his scholarly profession, grinned. The white patch over his right eye, in the exact shape of the country, flushed red.

Head Warrior Lizya frowned, but realisation slowly dawned on her face.

“They will not be useless,” V insisted. “They will fight for their country. Their purpose will be the protection of Peqkya. How many peens are ended each year at fifteen?”

“Perhaps a thousand,” Zecky replied reluctantly.

“That is one thousand more to protect our nation,” V said.

Lizya bobbed her head, slowly at first and then enthusiastically.

Zecky flicked her long rope-like braids from one side of her head to the other. “They will rebel again and this time they’ll know how to fight.”

Will the peons rise against me as they did against Ramya? She had to believe they would not, had to trust her gut.

“We’ll whip them into shape. They won’t blink unless a woman says so,” the Head Warrior said.

“Customs must change if Peqkya is to survive,” V repeated the words Sybilya had spoken earlier that day.

Zecky raised her eyebrows and stared down at her parchment. She picked up one half of the pencil and furiously scribbled. “The people won’t like it,” she muttered, “how to tell them…”

“I will see to this, V,” Naomya said.

“Thank you.”

“Truly, a momentous day in Peqkya’s history,” Chaz exclaimed raising his hands in the air. “I will be delighted to record this in the new histories.”

“That is all. I appreciate your counsel,” V said.

Lizya stood abruptly. “About time. My arse has gone numb.”

***

Gwrlain wailed from inside what had been Melokai Ramya’s apartment.

It was the same sound he had made when V had burst through into the assembly hall and had seen her Melokai slain by that cammer prince. When that cockface’s sword had thrust through Ramya and out through the baby tied to her back. In one horrific moment Gwrlain had seen his soulmatch and his daughter murdered.

V understood his desperate sadness; felt the same deep within, an eternal ache for lost loved ones. She had a hollow space in her chest where her friend Emmya’s death echoed. V did not need a personal guard, but Lizya had assigned Monya. The young novice warrior reminded her of Emmya with her thin braids often piled up in a bow atop her head. Her slightly chubby face but short and sturdy body, her inquisitive and friendly brown eyes and her exceptional skill with a sword. V liked to remember Emmya when she looked at Monya.

“It has been too long now,” Zecky, the Head Speaker was saying. My Head Speaker. It still felt weird.

“We need a public send off for Melokai Ramya. Everything is ready. People are expecting one, asking when it’ll happen. And then we can announce your appointment to the people officially. But no one can get near the cave creature and no one is certain what to do, as he was Ramya’s companion and was therefore afforded certain… privileges.” Zecky spat the last word in disdain.

“Why will no one go near him?” V asked.

“We’ve tried but he lets out a low hum. It rattles the room and if a person gets too close it stops them in their tracks and shakes them right to the bones. They retreat. I tried to take Terya from him,” Zecky glowered at the memory, “but he let out this death-rattle. I thought I might shake apart.”

“And the state of the bodies?”

“Both decomposing, of course. He has hugged them both to him since their death. If he’s not making his racket, he talks to them. Coos over the baby, sings. He hasn’t eaten since their death, he has become like a sleepwalker, not communicating with anyone. Enough’s enough. We need those bodies from him.”

V put a hand on Zecky’s shoulder. “I will do my best.” She handed Emmo to Monya and as the caterpillar scampered up the youngblood’s arm, said to her guard, “Stay here.”

V opened the door and entered the room cautiously.

Gwrlain was huddled by the fire, on his knees, rocking back and forth hugging the dead bodies of Ramya and the baby Terya to his chest. The corpses flopped over his arms, as if the insides had turned to liquid. Terya looked like the ragdoll V had played with as a child in the pen. Ramya was missing her teeth and nails, and her hair was matted.

The organs had putrefied, the stench overwhelming. Both had gone through the bloat stage and were now in the shrinking phase. Ramya’s once strong physique now thin and saggy. Gwrlain sang a haunting lament to them, kissing Ramya’s shriveled, rotting cheek every now and then.

V moved closer to the Trogr. His skin was almost translucent. She could see his sinewy muscle, veins and organs. His body was covered in fine, downy hair and in place of eyes he had two pink mounds. He was taller than V by a head and had a powerful, sculpted body with long limbs.

“Gwrlain, do you remember me? I was once your personal guard.”

The white giant turned his face to her. His shoulders stiffened and he clutched at the bodies with one hand, pulling them away from V. His nostrils flared as he took in a deep breath. He held his free hand out, palm up as he let out a throaty hum. He paused, c****d his head to listen and then emitted hums in short pulses, shifting his head at different angles to hear the responding echoes. He stuck out his tongue for a moment to taste the air. This humming and smelling was the blind Trogr’s way of seeing, his race having evolved in the deep, black caves and having no need for eyes.

“Violya. Warrior,” he said.

“Yes, and I am now the Melokai. Life has moved on. Ramya is gone but she will never be forgotten. Her people need to say goodbye, and she would want to say goodbye to them. You know this. She loved Peqkya, and you are keeping her from her people.”

“My… soulmatch,” Gwrlain choked. “My… daughter. You cannot take them from me.”

“Gwrlain, it’s time for Peqkya to say goodbye to Ramya and Terya. It’s time for you to say goodbye to their bodies. They’re not coming back. They must be burned.”

Gwrlain’s shoulders slumped.

“Ramya wanted to rescue the women taken by the Trogrs, by your people, did she not?”

“Yes.”

“She is no longer here to rescue them, but you are. You can rescue them. You can do this for Ramya.”

Gwrlain turned his face from V and clutched the ragdolls to his chest again. “I miss them, Violya.”

V’s breath hitched in her chest. “My best friend Emmya died, Gwrlain. My mentor, Ramya’s Head Warrior, Gogo, has died. I’ve also lost my Melokai. I miss them. But I carry them here,” she tapped her heart, “and here,” she tapped her forehead. “Grief will consume us if we let it. For our loved ones we must go on. You must go on, for Ramya.”

Gwrlain’s body convulsed in great heaving sobs. Her own sorrow scratched at the corners of her eyes, but she blinked it back.

“What would Ramya have wanted, Gwrlain? For you to sit here wasting away clutching her rotting body? Or would she have wanted you to finish what she had started? She loved her people, she’d want to be remembered. She’d want her passing to be marked and commemorated in the customary way.”

Gwrlain’s sobs slowly eased.

“She must say goodbye to her people,” V said.

He mumbled in the throaty, harsh, guttural language of Troglo.

“You can honour her memory by finding a way to get the kidnapped Peqkian women back from Troglo.”

He paused, and then nodded.

“You have important work to do. Ramya would be proud to know you are helping her people.”

V moved forward. “Let go of the bodies, Gwrlain.”

Gwrlain jumped to his feet. “No!” He hummed a low, staccato sound, the death-rattle as Zecky had called it. V’s body vibrated violently, her teeth chattered, and it took all her will to stop her quivering legs from collapsing. The danger woke her magic.

Shake him back! It said.

I can do that?

Of course! You can do anything.

I do not want to harm him.

The magic sighed, a whisper that tickled across her skin. Then don’t. Mimic the vibrations, control the air that surrounds him, just as he is controlling the air that surrounds you. A simple trick.

V focused on the shaking, pinpointed the air and copied it. Gwrlain jerked back, his translucent skin flushing red. His body tremored as hers was.

He fought against the shakes, his face taut, his skin turning a deep purple. With a yell his fingers uncurled from the bodies and slowly they slid from his grip to the floor.

His death-rattle ceased. And V ended hers in return. They both rubbed their arms and legs, the rattle’s aftermath feeling as if it had dislodged skin from bone. Gwrlain stared at her for a long time, a pink flush on his cheeks.

“Take them,” he said eventually. “Ramya deserves to say goodbye.”

He took one last look at the bodies on the floor, carefully stepped over them and stopped next to V, his head hung low. “I go to my bird nesting tower,” Gwrlain whispered. “I do not belong here.”

***

Melokai Ramya and her baby Terya were burned the following night in the square in front of the ruined House of Knowledge.

The pyre was lit and all held their breath as the fire licked at the wood under the bodies, and then caught with a sudden whoosh of heat and light. The blaze enveloped the honoured dead with a roar and burned bright, casting shadows on the huts around the square and shrouding those who stood nearest in a golden glow, the blazing pyre reflected in their eyes.

Everyone who was able had turned out to watch the celebration of her life and legacy. The peons in attendance wailed and keened, or were silent. These were the peons who had loved Ramya, not joining the rebellion.

Cats crawled through feet and legs to get close to the fire, encircling it, mewing. Head Speaker Zecky gave a rousing speech, Ramya’s favourite pipe player and dancers performed, wine was drunk in great quantities and people feasted.

V stood at the head of her warriors. The councillors each headed those from their professions.

The noise and commotion of the funeral unfolded around V, and as she watched the fire in silence, an image flashed in the flickering flames. Ammad plunging his sword through Ramya’s chest. Sparks spat and flew. Terya’s tiny head slumping. An abrupt shift in burning wood and the fire flared. V slicing off his arms when she should’ve killed him. Smouldering embers crackled. Ammad, still alive, evading her grasp... Again and again it repeated until V wanted to smack her forehead with the heel of her hand to get the thought out.

“V?” Monya’s voice sounded far off.

A squeeze of V’s wrist brought her to attention and Monya’s face was close to hers.

“V, one of Denya’s warriors has arrived from Fertilian. What she has to say cannot wait. She is injured.”

V ran towards the barracks, Monya at her heels. A warrior was slumped between two novices as medics dressed her wounds. Lizya was gently giving her water from a cup. V did not recognise the warrior.

“Marshya, your message,” the Head Warrior said and dismissed the novices and medics with a hand gesture. Lizya wrapped one of the warrior’s arms around her neck and tucked her shoulder under Marshya’s to take her weight.

Marshya glanced around, to ensure no one stood nearby and thumped a weak fist to her chest. “Melokai Violya.”

“Marshya.” V thumped a fist to her chest in return. “You can speak in front of Lizya.”

Marshya nodded and said, “Captain Denya betrayed Melokai Ramya’s orders to help the Clelands. She deserted them and switched sides to the Thornes. Her warriors followed her, as we are trained to do. But I defied her, I could not abandon Melokai Ramya’s command. I broke the code. I, too, deserted, to return.