Starlight's Children by Darian Smith

Author:Darian Smith [Smith, Darian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wooden Tiger Press
Published: 2017-10-08T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

Ula stood in the sand, her eyes closed, and listened to the wind and the waves. She scrunched her toes, feeling the rough grains squish between them like cool dry cloth. The night air caressed her skin and set the beads in her dreadlocks in gentle motion, releasing soft clicks like wind chimes as they touched. The surf crashed out in the bay and moments later a thin layer of ocean tickled her feet. The tide was coming in.

“It's time,” said a voice behind her. Lule had crept up as Ula waited, her footsteps silent in the soft sand.

Ula opened her eyes. The moon was high and full, but hazy behind a veil of gauze-like cloud. Night painted the ocean with mystery and what little light there was glimmered on the edge of each wave as it broke, making pale stripes in the darkness. She'd hoped the waters would glow for her tonight. She'd always loved the gentle phosphorescence that sometimes came to the ocean. It would have served as a good omen for the trial ahead. Alas, the kaluk, the earth spirits, were not speaking in omens tonight. She sighed. She would hear from them soon enough.

“Very well.” She turned to greet her fellow prioress. “I'm ready.”

Lule led the way as they walked along the beach toward where the gentle transition from sand to earth became first rocky, then grew to a cliff face. A bonfire in the sand signaled their destination. The closer they came, the more the firelight stole Ula's night vision and the rest of the world fell away into darkness.

As they approached, silhouetted figures plunged torches into the flames and then held them aloft as they formed two lines of solemn-faced shamans, creating a corridor of flame from the bonfire to the cliff.

Ula and Lule followed the fiery corridor. Ula knew the men and women holding the torches but few of them met her gaze as she passed. Most stood resolute, staring into the distance, and each one lowered their torch as she passed, stretching it out horizontally to form a barrier of flame behind her. There would be no returning the way she came.

At the end of the corridor, the cliff face loomed above her, a huge tsunami of rock with flickering shadows cast by the flames mimicking sea creatures trapped within. The light of the gathered torches did nothing to penetrate one particular shadow, and its jagged-edged stillness froze Ula's breath in her chest. It was the mouth of the cavern of the Gatuul Naah.

Lule put a hand on Ula's shoulder and squeezed. “Good luck,” she said.

The last two figures in the columns of torchbearers were Shool and Glaak. The older man dipped his head to Ula, his white hair reflecting the light of his torch. Shool stepped forward and took her by the elbow as if to pull her into the cave.

Ula shook him off. “You overstep yourself, Prior Shool. I'm perfectly capable of walking unaided.”

Shool nodded tersely. “Perhaps.”

Ula turned her back to him and ran her hands over her beaded leather smock.

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