Golden Daughter by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

Author:Anne Elisabeth Stengl
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Rooglewood Press
Published: 2014-11-10T00:00:00+00:00

In the dark of the evening, Brother Tenuk knelt in his private prayer chamber before an altar to Hulan. The altar was covered in a faded, moth-eaten cloth that once had been blue and fine. The threads of elegant embroidered work had withered away with time, leaving puncture holes behind, a ghostly testimony to the images once so carefully depicted.

Upon that cloth and altar stood a stone Moon Gate arch, no more than a foot tall. It looked no different from any other dotting the landscape of Noorhitam, save that from the center of this arch hung a silver gong. The gong shimmered where it hung, though there was no breeze to stir it.

Brother Tenuk lay before this altar, prostrate upon his knees, upon his face, his hands extended before him. Any who gazed into the chamber would have seen a man in an attitude of most abject and worshipful prayer. But no one could see that his face was twisted, his mouth open in a silent scream.

Possibly there existed somewhere a world where that scream was heard, causing all the denizens therein to shiver and offer prayers for protection. But here in his own world he dared not make a sound. So his mouth opened, and his throat constricted, and nothing but deep, deep silence poured forth.

Fear wrapped around his heart like a constricting snake, squeezing the life from his soul.

“Did I do right?” he whispered, his mouth scarcely able to form words, his lungs scarcely able to find breath to speak them. “Did I guess correctly? Have I indeed found the Dream Walker?”

Or was there something he was missing? Was there something he was not seeing, not understanding? A twisting, dark path spread before him, a demon’s path, and he must walk it. He had no choice. But he could not see where the darkness might lead. He knew only where it must eventually end.

Once more his mouth opened and his throat constricted with the strangling silence of a scream he dared not utter.

In his mind’s eye he saw Lady Hariawan bleeding from a poisoned talon embedded in her heart. And she was Kulap, his dove, his innocent dove. He could not distinguish the one from the other, for the two were made one in his vision.

A pounding on his door brought him bolt upright. The movement was too swift for his aged body, and pain shot through every limb. He masked it behind anger in his voice when he shouted, “What do you want? Why do you disturb me in my hour of prayer?”

“Brother Tenuk!” cried the voice of one of the priests. “Brother Tenuk, Lady Hariawan has disappeared!”

The abbot did not answer. He was silent for so long that at last the priest outside his door worked up the courage to knock again, saying only just loud enough to be heard through the panels, “One of the lady’s slaves discovered his fellow slave bound and gagged in the middle chamber of Lady Hariawan’s rooms. Of the lady herself there is no sign.

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