Tuya lived without feeling for many days after making the neverborn’s pain smaller. She stayed in the dark place, moving little, wanting nothing but sleep, caring only enough to eat the food Yaha made for her. For a few days, Yaha covered her in furs, brought meals, filled her cup with good water, and was patient. Then came the days where she pressured Tuya to move again, to make her own food, to do her spear exercises, to get out of the dark place and back on the surface, to tend plants, to free tamed, even just to link with Yaha and learn more words.
Tuya wanted none of it. Was it too much to ask for some rest after experiencing such devastation? Yaha thought so. You need to move again, Tuya, or you will stay stuck like this and we will never get away from here!
Tuya relented, not able to put her heart into the things, unable to care about anything. She became clumsy, losing her spear progress, struggling to listen to the wild and make things themselves. Patience, Yaha would say, was a virtue, yet the woman possessed little of her own. She snapped at Tuya one morning after a series of spear mistakes then Tuya tried to do her worst just to make Yaha angrier. It worked in the worst way, Yaha screamed, and, for once, Tuya screamed back.
The words said that day hurt more than any words Tuya ever said in her life. She stayed on the other side of the little stream, turned away from Yaha, vacillating between vindictive satisfaction and shameful regrets until Tuya chewed on more of the numbroot root than ever before and fell into a heavy, sleep of oblivion.
She woke dazed, her body sore and spent. Yaha offered a halfhearted, “Good morning,” and Tuya whispered it back, feeling like nothing about this morning was good. Was anything ever good in this world?
They avoided yesterday like it was a chimaera, not daring to speak about the words that were said lest they be the death of them. Yet, they could ignore the undertow of yesterday’s fight as easily as you could pretend away the salt that spoiled the ocean water and much like that salt, it made this morning unsustainable. Tuya doubted whether the woman would still care about her or want to help her for any reason other than her own survival. Worse, she worried that Yaha hated her now, just like the tamers did. Today’s discovery was that it felt no better to be hated for something you did than for something you were.
This heavy feeling set on her chest, making it seem like all hopes were crushed. Memories of being hated were her nourishment this morning. That, and feeling like she deserved to be hated for the awful thing she did. In this dark place where Norali’s light did not shine, she remembered the oldest question of her young life.
“Why do the tamers hate me?”
Yaha raised her eyebrows, her mouth made a sly smile, and her mind gave off a feeling of satisfaction. She would be happy to discuss why Tuya was a hated creature. Tuya was too tired to feel any anger at this. Only heavy sorrow sat upon her now, pushing everything else down.
Yaha poked at the fire, already a pair of skewers roasting. “Why do you seek stories of your own pain? Do you not have enough pain already?”
Tuya’s mind was slow, like the slug on the wall taking so long to reach its destination. Why did she ask this question when the answer would not take away the tamers’ hatred? Why had this question burned in her for as long as she could remember, huddling small in a hollow and clinging to whatever kindness Zaya gave her? Why must she know why she was hated, if the knowing did not change that she was hated? Even dulled by numbroot, she found the answer, understanding herself enough to know why a thing mattered to know even if it did not change the world around her. Yet.
“When I listen to the tamed, or to the plants, I must know them before I can make them more of themselves. If I am ever to make the Hollows more of themselves, more into this place of harmony that your Fourteenth saw, if I am ever to make this pain go away, I must know where it comes from. I must know the root of a thing and understand the soil that it grows in, in order to change the thing itself.”
Yaha’s smile faltered into a sympathetic frown. “The Fourteenth taught us that the things that divide people can always be understood, and that understanding was a bridge that can span across even the widest waters of anger and hate. It was with understanding that she helped the sixty-four clans overcome their unending conflict.” She moved closer to Tuya and squatted on the damp rocks beside her. “You remind me of her. Sometimes.”
Tuya found something she had not in days: a grin. “And sometimes I remind you that I am only fourteen.”
Yaha’s laughter echoed off the walls. The light seemed brighter and the darkness smaller when Yaha laughed, when Tuya’s grin grew like a seed determined to survive in the worst soils. Suddenly, just like that, it seemed possible that some things could be good, even this morning. Yaha caught her breath and handed Tuya one of the skewers.
“We will never know your age, Tuya of the Hollows. Between the numbroot leaf and the way you have been deprived, you could be anywhere between twelve and nineteen years old and I would not be surprised. For all that, you are both wise and insufferable as only someone with the painful experience of an elder and the rebellious spirit of an adolescent can be. With a combination like that, and a mind as strong and sharp as yours, you think you know best, and,” Yaha sighed, “Yadeen knows that sometimes you do.”
Tuya looked down, her smile fading as she knew what she must say now. “I am sorry for the things I said. They were neither my truth nor yours.”
After a few moments of silent staring at her own uneaten skewer, she braved a glance at Yaha. The old woman looked away from her, her chest rising and falling in small jerks, tears coming down the side of her face like rain. Seeing Yaha hurt, remembering those evil words, made Tuya feel like the worst soul to ever wander the world.
Yaha wiped away her tears with the tattered remains of her sleeves. “No, my little empagong, your spear hit closer to the truth than you know. We spent years failing to have a baby and when Olono encouraged me to step down and take on a ward it was I who always said, ‘One more adventure.’” Yaha sobbed. “For years I chased purpose, refusing the truth. I thought the closest I would ever get to it was as captain of the Sixty-Four and I brought them here to die. As you said, I never should be anybody’s…” Yaha’s last word was swallowed by her weeping. Tuya knew it anyway. How could she forget what she said? How could Tuya ever take back the pain she caused by telling Yaha that the Divine never let her become a mother because she would have been the worst at it?
Tuya put her hand on Yaha’s, tears falling down her face like two streams coursing through sand. She wished she could take those words back and toss them into the ocean. Yet, time never turned backwards, and words once said could never return. There was only forward, only new words to be said.
Tuya choked on a sob. She tensed her grip on Yaha’s hand. “Even when you get impatient, I know it is because you want what is best for me. Even when we yell, I know it is because you care about me. Even when I get angry and say the worst thing, you still love me. You would have been a great mother, Yaha. I am blessed that the Divine let you be mine.”
Yaha threw her arms around Tuya and cradled her like a beloved babe. Tuya felt her love in the firm, but gentle, touch, in the overpowering flow of love coming from Yaha’s mind, in the way her pain, and Yaha’s, grew much, much smaller. They did not stop crying, that only accelerated, like a river after the rains. Alas, these were not rivers of guilt or sorrow or pain. These were the drops of love, of joy, of gratitude that made life worth living even in the worst of places.
Ever the captain, Yaha moved into their purpose before the tears dried. “Before I voyaged here and found my favorite little empagong, I studied the Fourteenth’s accounts of Celegana’s Spire, the Hollows of the Great Vesarran Peninsula, and the people who lived here a thousand years ago. What she found was nothing like what we see today.
“Alexia Leveria’s chronicles describe Celegan men and women as people who lived in harmony with each other. Men were called tamers and women wilders. Tamers could make things what they wanted them to be and wilders could make things themselves again. The Fourteenth did not describe in great detail how they did these things, but she left the impression that their abilities were mutual and only when used in balance, could they thrive.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Tuya found herself shaking in her chest. That, she thought, sounds like how Celegana would have envisioned her people living. She could see it clearly, this world as it was meant to be. “The tamers exerted their will over nature to provide and the khorota, the wilders, made nature whole again so that nature could provide again. We need both to be in balance with Celegana. I should have liked to live in the Hollows then.”
“And I wish it was the place you were born into, because that is the society you and all the women here deserve.”
Tuya nodded and believed this to be true. Could this world ever be that way again? If this was the Wholeness that Gurgaldai spoke of, why did he choose to attack faraway places? Could she change his mind as his Chosen, as his equal? Could that be the way back to Celegana’s balance or would Gurgaldai force her to help him hurt everyone else until the entire world became like the Hollows as they were now? This was the true question of her life. Before answering that, she must understand the roots and the soil before she could hope to heal the Hollows. “Then it changed when the Gidiites conquered us?”
Yaha nodded. “Yes. The Gidiites claimed the wilders and enslaved or killed the tamers. The ‘weird rocks’ and ‘old stones’ you can find in the Hollows are from when they controlled the Spire and the Hollows. Worse, they left behind the Gidiite law of Zakhirch Magadgui, which translates to ‘might is right,’ the belief that the strong have divine mandate to claim what they want from those who are weaker. To them, the Celegan harmony was weak, too different from their worship of Gidi, Divine of War and Strength. They saw themselves as your saviors and not your slavers, bringing tools, agriculture, and their god to a primitive people that lived inside trees.”
Tuya shook her head and it felt like anger would burn a hole through her gut. “The tamers became the very people who hurt them. They should have known better! They hurt us, they hurt the entire world, exactly as the Gidiites harmed them!”
“I agree, Tuya, but what you must know is that centuries passed where the Gidiites stripped away the identity of the Celegan people. They bred with the wilders, each generation making the tamers more like them, yet still keeping them oppressed by restricting their ability to own things or mate. Only when those with tamer powers outnumbered and overpowered the pure Gidiites, did rebellion ensue. Even then, the root of your answer lies in the role the wilders played in these rebellions.”
Tuya understood now as revelation revised her worldview. “We served the Gidiites. We broke tamer links and kept them oppressed.”
“Yes. It did not matter to the tamers that the wilders were slaves just like them. It mattered that the wilders made them weak and, in a world where might makes right, weakness cannot be allowed. Women like you are the weakness of the tamers and they learned that in order to stay strong they must dominate you until you were no longer able to challenge their might.”
It all made sense now. Just as Zaya told her that day in the rain so many seasons ago, the tamers feared her and women like her. Rather than return to the vulnerability of harmony, they chose to make themselves mighty, chose to repay all the pain they suffered over generations and inflict it upon the wilders, upon any who were different or weaker. This was the soil she grew in. Understanding a thing did not change a thing, but having this answer brought her both peace and sorrow. She wished things could be different, but, again, she could not change the past. All Tuya could do now was go forward, doing whatever she could to change the soil around her.
Three paths were laid out in front of her. In one, the easiest of them all, she could accept the world and acknowledge the tamers had a reason for their pain and that their might made them right to do whatever they did and nothing could stop them. This end made her think of the cliffs and the rocks below them. At the very least, she would not help Gurgaldai make this world worse. Neither would she make pain smaller if she gave up. She never wanted to think of this worst of options, but knew it would visit her on hopeless days where everything seemed wrong, when the belief that nothing could ever be good took hold of her.
The second path was far harder, but still perhaps easier than the third. Gurgaldai saw her as equal and gave her a chance to find her strength so that they together might restore wholeness. Could she pull out the roots of their painful past and convince him to plant new seeds? Could they restore the harmony of that once upon a time long, long ago? Her stomach churned and not because the skewer remained uneaten on her lap. She did not know whether she could love the tamers, love Gurgaldai, after all the hurt, no matter how beautiful that past and Gurgaldai were. Yet, even though this path sounded like the right one, it did not feel so.
The third, the final, path was the scariest of all. She could find allies and fight back, just as the tamers had against the Gidiites. There were people in this world, people like her, like Yaha, like Sarnai, that would stand up against this mighty monster that pushed everyone down. Some of those people were in the faraway lands, waiting for her to fly away and find them. Others were right above her in the Hollows, their wilding powers suppressed, or, just maybe, there was at least one tamer that did not want things the way they were, that wanted to change this soil that seeped in the tears of women and made the boys into hateful beasts. This path of war sounded wrong, but it felt as right as Celegana’s touch.
For all her supposed wisdom, Tuya trusted neither her feelings nor her mind. This single choice determined her future, the future of the Hollows, if not the entire world. Should she try to make the Celegans themselves again or did she need to rid the world of the tamers before they spread this plagued soil into every land? Right now, it did not feel like she could do either so should she just give up?
When in the dark, when in doubt, it was a blessing to have a mother who loved you and wanted to help you find your light. “You question what you must do,” Yaha said, tapping Tuya’s shoulder. “It is in your nature to make things more of themselves and this part of you, my beautiful empagong, wants to restore the balance between tamer and wilder. You wonder whether you can build a bridge of understanding and love between you and Gurgaldai or if the only way you can make pain smaller is to defeat him.”
“What do I do, Yaha?”
Yaha inhaled. “Almost every part of me wants to tell you he is too far gone. This man that killed my Olono and all of our crew will not stop until he destroys the Heiyan Savanna, the Great Atmana Forest, and even Isihla. He will turn your children into the monsters that will cross the sea and spread this hate to the white sands of Caleel and all the other places in our world. I want to tell you, Tuya, that he must be destroyed and our singular focus should be escaping him and defeating him.”
“Then I should let go of harmony? Choose rebellion?”
Yaha said nothing, but kept her eyes on Tuya as the flames flickered and Tuya’s lightseer eyes lit their grotto. Tuya wavered between her choices, unwilling to let go of harmony but also uncertain about rebellion. She locked her hands together and prayed to Celegana and Norali for the right answer. If they whispered anything, she heard them not. The planet and all its beings spoke to her, crying for freedom, wanting to be themselves again, while her eyes could not see the path ahead no matter how far away they saw.
One mother did answer her, sitting beside her and putting her arm across her back, holding her together as these different paths pulled her into separate directions. “You do not need to make this decision today. For now, all you must do is keep growing into who you are meant to be and seeking this answer for yourself. Whether you make this choice tomorrow or ten years from now, I will be with you, helping you search. Now, eat, Tuya, and we can think about your next steps.”
Tuya smiled and bit into a lukewarm shrimp. She had to chew everything slowly and digest it all. Alas, patience was not Yaha’s virtue.
“We need to figure out what you must figure out to make this choice. What say you, my little empagong?”
Tuya swallowed. “Listening to your story, I know of one thing I must do no matter what I choose.”
Yaha perked up. “Is that so?”
Tuya nodded. “I must help the wilders rediscover their strength.”
“Yes!” Yaha leapt to her feet, pacing around the fire. “You do not have to do this alone. Whether for rebellion or harmony, you will need them.” She leapt up and down, pulsing with excitement. “We start there! Not with gaining the trust of some tamer.”
Tuya smiled, knowing which little wilder she would seek out first. But the wilders were not the only ones they would need in the days to come. Whether through harmony or escape, at least one tamer needed to be with her. “Second, I will see if Darrakh can love me, if he can be trusted.”
Yaha groaned, crouched down, and bristled on the far side of the fire, hiding her face. “I cannot stop you there. But beware of Gurgaldai. I am certain he watches you, even if you cannot see him. I doubt he will idly allow you to fall in love with another man. There are too many ways this can go wrong for me to give you my blessing.”
Tuya’s smile faded into a frown. “And that is the third thing, the most important of them all. Gurgaldai. I must speak with him again, see him again. If I am to make this decision, I need to know his heart and whether he can be changed.”
Yaha sagged, slumping to the ground. Head down, she sighed. “I suppose that is true.” She sighed again, then forced cheer her mind did not radiate. “Where shall we begin?”