T.J. Mindancer - Future Dreams Read online

  “Paldar.” Paldon stepped forward and opened her arms to her skittish daughter. “Come give your mother a proper greeting.”

  Tigh had avoided human contact for the two years she had been a fugitive from the Wars and trembled at the shock of warmth from her mother’s understanding embrace and soothing words of comfort. Joul stepped forward and she was passed into his caring arms.

  “It’s good to see you again, Daughter.” Joul’s gentle voice lit a fire of memories in Tigh’s devastated mind.

  “Let’s all sit and catch our breaths from the climb up those steps,” Paldon said as she and Joul led Tigh to the cot and sat on either side of her. “We’re not as young as we once were.”

  “Thank you for visiting,” Tigh whispered to the floor.

  “You’re our eldest daughter, no matter what the state has done to you in the name of service to the Southern Territories.” Paldon rubbed Tigh’s muscle hardened arm. “We want to make sure you get through this rehabilitation process so you can come home where you belong.”

  “It’s not as simple as that.” Tigh couldn’t keep down her anguish at the thought of being returned to society and knowing what she had been during the Wars.

  “Loena Sihlor appears to be a very competent healer and she feels you’re not giving the process a chance to work for you,” Paldon said.

  Tigh took a deep breath and focused on a small knot in the dark wood floor. “Most of the Guards aren’t known by sight. They can return to the world with only their own demons to fight against. The people know me. Not because I was the supreme commander of the last victorious campaigns but because I was Tigh the Terrible.”

  “But the healers say you’ve been cleansed of all that nastiness,” Paldon said. “You’re certainly the daughter I remember you to be. A little fitter perhaps, but that’s not a bad thing.”

  “Cleansing me doesn’t cleanse the people’s memories of what I was and what I did.” Tigh’s voice cracked with intense despair at the thought of never being free again. “The cleansing didn’t remove the memories of who I was from myself. I’ll spend the rest of my life fighting both society’s memories and my own.”

  “Let the healers help you. That’s their job, after all,” Paldon said. “You’re the eldest daughter of the House of Tigis. The talent you showed for leadership in the Guards is a great attribute to our family.”

  “That Tigh is dead. May I forever trample on her grave.” Tigh broke away from the loose hold of her parents and bolted to the window. “Whatever it was that made me a leader is also dead,” she said to the flower scented breeze touching her face.

  “We’ll be spending a few days here in Ynit,” Paldon said. “We’ll be back tomorrow. All we ask is you think about what we’ve discussed. Remember, you always have a family to come home to.”

  Chapter 3

  Jame paused as they stepped from the tunnel that burrowed into the southern wall of Emor, the only city in Emoria, carved from a horseshoe shaped canyon high in the Phytian Mountains. The natural caves and shelters that pocked the white rock bluffs of the canyon had been artfully fashioned into residences and shops.

  A cobblestone square filled the bottom of the canyon, concealing the stream bed that flowed through the valley. Jame had always enjoyed performing the spring maintenance of the shallow wells that were used to access this water and fortifying the dammed lake further up the stream that protected the city from all but the most severe floods.

  At that time of the evening, in the gray dusk, Emor was quiet. She used to know every stone of the city. Why does it look strangely foreign now?

  “As you can see, nothing’s changed.” Argis sauntered into the square.

  Jame frowned at Argis’s back but decided not to say anything. Maybe she was just tired after traveling all day. She knew she was hungry.

  They walked across the square to the double wooden doors of the palace. Jame couldn’t describe what she felt as she looked up at the towering walls of stone, painted with bright murals of legendary Emorans and speckled with lights flickering behind quartz windows. She was glad to see her home again and she looked forward to visiting with her family and friends, but she knew she was just visiting. Her life lay somewhere else until she had to return as queen.

  “I’ll go on ahead and let the queen know you’re here,” Tas said when they entered the main hall of the palace with its cascading walls of etched stone soaring up to the top of the bluff.

  Jame caught the conspiratorial look that passed between her old friends and realized that Tas thought that she and Argis wanted to spend some time alone before the evening meal. She and Argis had deepened their relationship during her last prolonged visit two years earlier but she had drifted away from it as she became immersed in her new position as assistant arbiter. Now face to face with Argis again, she wasn’t sure how she felt about the taciturn warrior.

  “Welcome home, my princess.”

  “Poylin.” Jame hugged a slender scout and ruffled her unruly sand-colored hair. “You have your scout braid.”

  “Yeah.” Poylin grinned. “Now Olet can’t tease me anymore.”

  “About not having a braid, at least.” Jame ducked Poylin’s playful swipe.

  Several other women greeted Jame and she laughed and talked with each of them. Maybe coming home wasn’t so bad. She stepped on the wide curve cut into the stone and lined with torches and trudged up the steep incline to the next floor and the next curve.

  She glanced at Argis, who was scowling at something. She looked down the corridor and grinned as Sark, Queen Jyak’s right hand, strode to her. She looked back at Argis, who was still scowling. What’s that all about?

  “My princess,” Sark said. “We’re all so happy you could make it home.”

  “I’m happy to be here,” Jame said. “You’re looking better than the last time I saw you.”

  Sark held out her arm. “It’s all healed and good as new.”

  “That’s good to hear.” Jame glanced at Argis and was surprised to see the scowl still in place.

  “I’ll let you get settled in,” Sark said. “See you at evening meal.”

  Jame walked up the next curve carved out of the wall to a short corridor with just two doors on either side of it. The quiet contrasted with the other floors of the palace, reminding her that these rooms were for her to fill with her own family. When she was ready to settle down.

  Jame paused outside the door of her chamber and thought of the countless times she had crossed that threshold and had taken sweet refuge within.

  Argis, seemingly oblivious to Jame’s mental trips into the land of ambivalence, pushed open the door. Warm air rushed out to meet them from the chattering flame in the fireplace carved into a side wall and the warm spring fed waterfall and pool tucked in the back of the chamber.

  Jame was surprised to see that everything was as she had left it. A shrine to a life that felt like it had been lived by someone else.

  “I bet it feels good to be home.” Argis grinned as she followed Jame into the chamber. “I’m happy to see you.”

  Jame realized that Argis would never understand what it was like to be away from home for so long to pursue something she truly enjoyed. “I missed you, too.”

  Argis’s odd uncertain look softened into one of happiness as she wrapped her arms around Jame and kissed her.

  Jame’s stomach rumbled and spared her the need to remind Argis that they were expected in the dining hall. If she had been ambivalent about her feelings, Argis’s arms around her brought them into acute focus. She knew at that moment the intensity of their romance from two years before had faded. Maybe returning home hadn’t been such a good idea.

  “WE UNDERSTAND YOU have to adjust to having your mental enhancements cleansed,” Paldon said.

  Tigh sat on her cot and stared at the piece of parchment in her hand. She listened to her mother’s words and knew that a sheltered merchant could never understand what she felt.

  “She knows we understan
d.” Joul turned from gazing out the window. “She’s just uncertain about taking this next step. Isn’t that right, Tigh?”

  Tigh looked up at the use of her nickname, a sign of acceptance of her chosen identity. She was too confused and exhausted to argue anymore. “Yeah, that’s it.”

  Paldon knelt in front of Tigh. “We know everything seems hopeless right now. Healer Sihlor said every Guard feels that way when they’re first cleansed. You just have to trust us and take the next step. All you have to do is sign that parchment and let the healers help you to adjust to the cleansing.”

  Paldon’s reasonable voice had always soothed Tigh’s unsettled mind when she was young. She stared at the floor. “Did they ask you to come here?”

  “We received a letter explaining your situation and we offered our help,” Paldon said. “You’re our eldest daughter and our heir. We’ve long gotten past our bitterness against the state for misleading us about what it meant to be a Guard. We only saw it as an opportunity for you to gain some worldly experience.”

  “Besides, they wouldn’t take no for an answer.” Tigh raised sad eyes to her mother. “And the compensation was hard to say no to.”

  “All the Guards’ families were equally compensated,” Paldon said. “It was only right that they paid for your services.”

  “They did pay us for our services,” Tigh said. “Plus the spoils of our conquests.”

  Paldon frowned. “Spoils?”

  “War is not the bright glamorous campaigns depicted in the books you like to read.” Tigh gazed across the room and saw in her mind’s eye bloody battlefields and ransacked cities. “We conquered, then we sacked and took whatever we wanted. We were ruthless without mercy. The Guards were used to spread fear to the next city that thought of resisting our advancing armies. We were never allowed to go near a city or army that had surrendered. We couldn’t be controlled enough to act civilized. So we fought armies in the field and were brought in to suck the life out of cities foolhardy enough to think they could beat us. We weren’t treated like human beings. We were weapons tipped with poison, carefully controlled until pointed at a target. Then we were let loose to create terror and mayhem. That’s what I have to carry around up here.” She tapped her head. “And it’s never going to go away. The best the healers can do is help me live with the memories.” She raised bleak eyes to her parents who looked shaken by her words. “Would you want to pretend to live a normal life with memories like that clawing forever against the back of your mind?”

  “Even the most horrific events in one’s life can be turned into something positive,” Paldon said. “Concentrate on what you learned from these different cultures. You have an insight into, not only the peoples of the Northern Territories, but into many of the different cultures of the Southern Territories. You can use this knowledge to help increase the holdings of the House of Tigis. No one will care that you were Tigh the Terrible. All that matters is you were the supreme commander of the campaigns that ended the war. People will value the knowledge you hold and will respond to your natural leadership ability.”

  Tigh stared at her mother and knew that she truly believed what she said. The words could even be true if she had paid attention to the different cultures and cities her armies ripped through and destroyed. But her ruthlessness had blinded her to everything but her own power and vanity.

  Paldon most likely envisioned the House of Tigis engaged in the ironic business of rebuilding the war ravaged Northern Territories. If Tigh were her mother’s daughter, she’d find the idea appealing, but she had never been attracted to the idea of being a merchant.

  Paldon sighed. “I know it all seems hopeless now. But Healer Sihlor said the rehabilitation is a series of small steps. The first step is to sign that document. Your cleansing cannot be listed as complete until you do.”

  Tigh looked at the parchment. A simple statement confirming that she had been successfully cleansed of the mental enhancements she had received as a member of the Elite Guard. If she signed it, the healers would start the next step in healing the gaping wounds in her psyche—a process that frightened her. But what were her alternatives? Living in this narrow cell or in equally stark quarters for the rest of her life?

  She looked at the open door. Opened or closed, locked or unlocked, it didn’t matter to her. She wouldn’t leave because she didn’t think she deserved to leave. But she couldn’t stay where she was forever.

  Tigh stood and helped Paldon up from her kneeling position. She stepped past Paldon and laid the parchment on the small table. She picked up her quill and stared at the jar of ink. It hadn’t been touched in over two years and was long dry.

  “Here.” Joul handed her his metal quill with a built-in reservoir of ink.

  Tigh took the implement and scrawled her name at the bottom of the document.

  “I HONESTLY DIDN’T know they were going to do that, Jame.” Queen Jyac looked uncharacteristically nonplussed.

  Jame, still in her sleep shirt, paced around her chamber as she waited for the tailor to arrive to fit her with a new set of leathers. “They had no right to challenge Argis. She has no formal claim on me.”

  “You’ve been too young for a formal claim. But you’re both nineteen now. Argis is a full warrior and is ready for a commitment. The others are taking advantage of the fact that you’ve been away for two years and a proper courtship hasn’t taken place,” Jyac said. “Argis has been a little too sure of her place in your heart and I think many of the warriors resent it.”

  “I don’t know what her place in my heart is.” Jame stopped pacing and faced her aunt. “All I know is my heart is on what I’m doing in Ynit. Argis may be ready for a commitment but I’m not. Now she’s going to get her head bashed in because she’s been bragging too much.”

  “Argis is willing to learn the consequences of a rash tongue,” Jyac said. “But it’s not an unreasonable assumption on her part to think that you’re a couple. You were very much together the last time you visited.”

  “But that was two years ago,” Jame said. “I’ve seen and done so much since then. I’ve changed much more than I had ever thought possible.”

  “I understand that you enjoy your work,” Jyac said. “All I ask is for you to take the time to reacquaint yourself with Emoria and your old friends. And give Argis a chance. Your destiny is here as queen. Sometimes we have to make our decisions based on the greater good of the people.”

  Jame sucked in a breath. The conflict between wanting to pursue her own life and her duty to her people was forever in her mind. Sometimes she felt selfish for needing to break free of Emoria’s restraining society. But the greater good extended far beyond her own people and she found tremendous satisfaction in helping the former Guards who had been treated as castoffs from the society they had saved.

  She turned around at a light tap on the open door. A plumpish woman, clutching a basket of leather scraps, ambled in.

  “Good morning, Trione,” Jyac said.

  “Good morning, my queen,” Trione said. “It’s so good to see you again, my princess. Added some muscle, I see. You were much too thin on your last visit.”

  “I now have a job where I can afford to feed myself and it’s exercise just getting around the fortress at Ynit,” Jame said.

  “It certainly looks good on you.” Trione pulled out patches of leather and rough-stitched them together. “Here, put this on and then we can get down to work.”

  Jame took the patchwork of leather and sighed. How many times had she been fitted for leathers? In the past, she had always looked forward to it. New leathers were a symbolic show of physical growth and new status within their society. Why did this fitting feel like the first step on a journey she wasn’t ready to take?

  “I DON’T ENVY you at all right now,” Mularke said as she and Tas followed Argis to the sparring grounds in the meadows on top of the western bluff of the city. The cacophony of colors from the spring wild flowers made the usually plain grasslands look like a
giant patchwork quilt stitched together by warriors using swords as needles—artless but breathtaking in its own way.

  “I thought you enjoyed fights with impossible odds.” Argis flicked an amused glance at the tall, blonde archer.

  Mularke straightened. “Only when I’m too drunk to think about it.”

  “I can’t believe you’re not nervous about this.” Tas doubled her steps to keep up with her taller companions. “You’re going against Dinaf and Tamrin, not to mention Barbis, Beckla, Lindle, and Catelin. They’re all tough fighters.”

  “And I’m not?” Argis spun around and pinned Tas with a menacing glare.

  Tas crossed her arms. “You practice that by watching your reflection in the Temple mirror pools.”

  Argis glared for a few more heartbeats, then roughed up Tas’s shaggy hair. “I’ll win. I have a greater reason to win than they do.”

  “Would that be love or pride?” Mularke nimbly sidestepped Argis’s lunge.

  Tas stepped between them. “Save it for the sparring pit.”

  “Jame and I have had each other’s hearts since we were children,” Argis said. “It seems her absence has made everyone forget that. It’s time to remind them.” She turned and strode across the grass.

  “I’m wondering if someone needs to remind Jame,” Tas said as she and Mularke trotted after Argis.

  Argis gave Tas an unamused look and then rounded the row of rough wooden barracks. She stopped, surprised to see a small crowd of warriors and scouts gathered around the neatly raked sparring pit. Younger warriors’ boasts and brags resulted in regular challenges that rarely interested the citizens of Emor enough to disrupt their daily routine. Argis realized that a challenge made over her claim as Jame’s suitor was anything but usual. The more witnesses the better to put away any question of her right to be at Jame’s side once and for all.