Leaden Prayers
by John Burridge
When Joshi saw the two outlander men taking their morning meal in the yard of Southshore’s only inn, she knew they were the season’s first pilgrims.
Every year, at the end of the dry season, the waters of Long Lake receded and revealed a sunken temple. In the revealed temple was a holy well, protected by a mysterious, watery guardian. Stories of the temple, the well, and its guardian brought pilgrims for blessings before the autumnal rains came and hid the temple for another year. And every year, Joshi moored her boat, Keen-eyed, at the docks of the village of Southshore in the hope of turning a few coins ferrying pilgrims.
The older man wore a new, clean, light green shirt and new quilted cotton jacket. Even the younger man’s plainer green clothes had a new, if slightly travel-stained, look about them. No one from the lake wore that much green.
She stopped her morning prowl of the market square and pretended to inspect wicker crab traps while she considered the best way to approach them. The summer had been difficult for Joshi. The lord of Rockpoint Village had its forge busy casting a series of bells, so there were no hooks or nails or knives to ferry from there to the rest of the lake. The crabbing season was over and it would be weeks before the rice harvest would bring cargo opportunities. Until then, she needed a job in order to pay the dock owner—either that or sail back to Mother’s fleet and turn Keen-eyed into a houseboat for her younger brother and sister-in-law’s family.
“Ho, Joshi,” said Hachi the trap maker. “You going to take up crab fishing?” He held a thick clay mug of tea between his hands to stave off the chilly morning.
“Maybe,” she said. “It would have pleased my Grandmother. Keen-eyed used to work the lake.”
“I think you have other things to catch,” he said, jutting his chin in the direction of the inn behind her. “Those pilgrims are far from home, by the look of their clothes.”
Joshi agreed; their woven sashes had patterns favored by traders far south and east of Long Lake.
“They’re a little early,” she said. “When I sailed from Rockpoint, three days ago, the temple’s smaller towers were just beginning to show.” She paused as if considering. “Rockpoint—they could use good crab traps there; and I know someone who is willing to trade for—”
“—the lake’s best urns. I know, I know. Go along and dicker with the pilgrims.”
She walked to where the inn’s yard abutted the village market square, looking without appearing to stare at the pilgrims sitting at a covered table. One looked to be Joshi’s younger brother’s age, about twenty years. The other, with gray beginning to show in his beard, looked about twice as old.
Ha! They were pilgrims! They both wore rolled metal prayer scrolls, no larger than her pinkie, around their necks. The older man wore his on a fine metal chain, the younger man wore his on a leather thong. Joshi thought they might be related; maybe uncle and nephew. The younger man’s clothes were plain, but too fine to be a slave’s. He never looked at the older man directly. Perhaps he was a bondsman.
It didn’t matter—she could take both on Keen-eyed and have room to spare for two more.
She preferred women pilgrims; they were less apt to tell her how to sail her own boat or to steal a kiss—or worse—on the lake. Even a pleasant kiss from a handsome man brought complications.
She sauntered into the inn’s yard and up to their table.
“Hey,” she said in the trade language favored by southern outlanders. “You want boat? Me take you to lake temple. Very soon now, waters go. Temple rise up.”
“We have an tongue of thy mothers,” the younger one said.
Oh ho, Joshi thought, a very earnest pilgrim. This could be good or bad; earnest pilgrims were either very rich or very poor.
She eyed their clothes again—the older one’s prayer scroll was silver, not lead—and decided they were rich. Rich pilgrims brought their own problems. She switched to her own language. “Since you speak so well, I’ll make you a deal.”
The younger pilgrim gazed at her. “If, as thou say, an temple riseth from waters, what is today holding us from waiting an seven-day and taking an boat out by selves-alone?”
Joshi smiled back at him. “It is the start of the rice harvest, so most boats will be winnowing through the fields, knocking the kernels into their hulls. Also, it is not always safe to be on the lake at night. So I wish you luck finding a boat, fast like mine, to get you to the temple and back in a day.”
She didn’t tell him that there would be fishing boats out on the lake.
“I expect I could be hiring an fisherman,” the young pilgrim said, as if reading her mind.
She tilted her head to the side. “Ah, well—they don’t sail to the temple often because fisherman’s luck there is bad.” This was true. “They fish for trout or for black crab in a good place south, near the lake’s outlet.”
“Hmm.” The older pilgrim frowned at her.
Miriagie, the inn’s hostess, scuttled out. Ever since Joshi had pursued a passenger back to Miriagie’s inn to collect a debt, the hostess had been hostile. “Excuse me,” she said to the pilgrims. “Is this boat-woman bothering you?” Miriagie glared past them at Joshi.
“I was just going to tell these visiting strangers where they must leave their prayer scrolls,” Joshi said. “But, as I have no wish to offend….” She bowed and stepped backward.
“Wait—please,” the older pilgrim said. “We have not stopped business conducting.” He jabbered quickly at the younger man.
The younger pilgrim said, “We need to fix thy price.” He placed a quarter-drocha on the table.
That would keep her eating for a week. Joshi put on her best gambling face.
“And,” he continued, “we must go today.”
Joshi paused. The full moon was tonight. It would call things from the lake, mostly the black crabs which were good to eat—but also other watery beasts, larger and less savory. It would be better to take them to the temple in a few days. “Holy ones,” she said. “Although the waters have been falling quickly, it is too soon to visit. There is no place to land a boat. The temple well will be under water.”
The two frowned at each other.
The older one turned back to her. “Still, we go.”
She told them the truth. “It is bad luck to sail to the temple when the moon is full.” This seemed to please the older pilgrim. “Especially after the sun sets. I could tell you many grim tales of foolish adventurers.” She did not tell him the uneasy, uncanny feeling she felt when she once sailed close to the temple’s central tower and over the sunken courtyards. She’d never done that again. “And to get there and back takes the whole day.”
“Then we must now sail.” The younger pilgrim rose and placed a coin in Miriagie’s hand for the breakfast.
Joshi recalled a surly and stingy pilgrim who had whined about the fare one early visit. “There will be only topmost walls visible—I would not wish to see you disappointed.”
The older man must have caught the tone in her voice, for he said, “We trust gods water low.” Even with his broken speech, he sounded certain. “I reward thou.” He added a half-drocha to the coin on the table. “One now. Another when… later.”
The younger pilgrim strode toward the lake’s shore, then paused and turned. “Thy boat hitched this way, yes?”
She slowly picked up both coins and turned to the older man beside her. “I am Joshi, Shodisdaughter. How shall I call you?”
The pilgrim smiled a little, as if he told himself a joke, “I have… no name pilgrimage. Call me Noman. This,” he indicated the younger man, who looked at his feet, “is apprentice.”
No names. Joshi felt the weight of her payment in her hand. Her pleasure at the season’s first pilgrims became brittle. “Of course, Noman.” She let it go. She wasn’t always sure what her passenger’s names were, anyway. Outlanders sometimes did not speak her language other than with coins and a few scattered words like “lake” and “temple.”
Miriagie flashed a sour look at her before clearing the breakfast dishes. “Good sailing.”
The morning’s gentle, westerly breeze was not cooperating. She had to tack Keen-eyed into it once she had poled the flat-hulled boat clear of the village docks.
Sunlight reflecting off the burnished copper of Keen-eyed‘s port eye sent a beam into the low fog still hugging the lake. Lazy waves slapped against her prow.
Joshi warned the pilgrims seated on opposite sides of the boat. “I’m going to turn again. Watch your heads.” She swung the tiller.
They over-compensated, hunching down like spooked geese as the red triangular sail swept over them.
“You’ll get used to the boat tacking,” she said. “We want to go north and west,” she pointed to the dark smudge of rising cliffs along the lake’s western shoreline. “But the wind off the shore is blowing us east.”
She straightened the tiller and pointed Keen-eyed’s prow at the rice fields stretching away from the village.
“We may get a more favorable wind later in the day. But do not worry,” she said. “We’ll arrive at the temple in plenty of time. Keen-eyed is a good boat. I polished her eyes this morning, and they were freshened with new paint last full moon.”
Noman grunted. He leaned forward and muttered something to the apprentice, which made the apprentice’s eyes widen, though he quickly hid his surprise. Then Noman slumped so that his head was below the sail, closed his eyes, reached for his prayer scroll, and began a low chant.
So, she thought, Noman was a chanting pilgrim. Some pilgrims were devout and prayed constantly or babbled on about the blessed healing conferred by the well. Others were quiet and desperate, coming to the sunken temple to cure an illness or to pray for a loved one. Some were resentful or bored; sent on a pilgrimage instead of called to do so. Joshi glanced at the apprentice and wondered if both of them would chant all the way to the temple. She’d endured such trips before.
But the apprentice didn’t join his master. Instead, he studied the mast, triangular red sail, and lines. His gaze lingered on the small square hatch in the low deck house before shifting to the shoreline.
The way his eyes darted with curiosity reminded Joshi of her younger brother, Kende, whom she hadn’t seen in two years. They were fiery, but kind. She could tell from the way his gaze skirted Noman that the apprentice was a little in awe of the older man—the same way Kende was in awe of their mother.
The older pilgrim shifted slightly. His chanting sounded unlike any prayers she had ever heard. They must have come from far away.
Joshi tacked again, sailing away from the shore. “Tell me,” she said softly to the apprentice, so as not to disturb Noman. “What lands did you see on your pilgrimage here?”
He seemed glad for the question. “We comed from the very far from here, south and east.”
“Did you pass the river of gryphons?” she asked.
“It is river not, more a stream.”
“But there are gryphons?”
“Maybe, once.” He leaned a little closer to her. “In an tavern along the creek an strange skull hanged over the fireplace. Twice big as a horse’s skull, but not a horse—more bird. I not in the past seen anything like it.”
Joshi frowned with disappointment. “That’s too bad. I’ve heard so many stories. I know they eat horses, but I would want to see one.”
“Oh, the people sell small pictures of gryphons on river stones, but live creatures darkened the skies no.”
The sail fluttered. The wind became fitful, dying then puffing from different quarters. Joshi peered at the lake to get a feel for what the wind was doing and steered the boat farther away from the shore.
The apprentice sat very still. “Tell me what thou knoweth about the temple well’s guardian?”
“Enough to—”
The wind changed quarter and became a light breeze from the south. Keen-eyed‘s sail rustled and snapped. Joshi swung the tiller hard and turned her to catch the wind. “Mind the sail,” she warned.
Noman, eyes still closed, hunched lower and the boom cleared his head by a wide margin. The apprentice also ducked, but kept his gaze on Joshi.
Keen-eyed sprang forward.
“Ooh, a good wind.” Joshi said. “You may be in luck today.” She fed more line to the sail.
When she looked at the apprentice, he was still waiting for her answer. Ah, she thought, a frightened, earnest pilgrim.
“Although I have gone into the temple many times,” she said softly, “I have never seen the guardian. It only comes out at night, which is why I am sure to be sailing from the temple well before sunset.”
He seemed disappointed.
Joshi checked the sail. The wind increased, and Keen-eyed‘s prow churned a white froth of water. “There are many stories told around the hearths of the villages,” she said. “Some say the guardian is the ghost of the last priestess. Or a lake creature that was once a man who angered the gods. Other village storytellers speak of a giant crab or pike, but my grandmother always told us it was a serpent.”
He sat straight and rigid with his jaw clenched. She saw through the determined set of his face, and knew that she was frightening him. “Oh, do not worry, pilgrim. The day is clear and this wind is very lucky.” She gave thanks for the wind. It would get them to—and away from—the temple quickly.
At her words, Noman smiled. He kept chanting with his eyes closed and a fist around his prayer scroll.
The apprentice asked, “The guardian is an serpent, then?”
“Pilgrim, I do not know,” she said. “It is safe enough during the day for visitors to pray and make offerings at the temple’s well. The guardian only appears to those foolish enough to linger past sunset or who disturb the tranquility of the well’s courtyard.”
Her words did not appear to reassure him.
She was going to say more, but the wind turned the tips of the waves white. There was no trace of the morning’s fog now. Keen-eyed raced north-northwest. Her initial pleasure at the good wind waned as the wind grew stronger. It was unusual, but not unheard of. The lake did make its own weather.
Noman’s chanting carried over the sounds of the wind on the waves and the splashing foam under the prow. Joshi had heard many foreign psalms of praise or thanksgiving before, but Noman’s words sounded more commanding, as if he were casting a spell.
She trimmed the sails to catch less wind and check Keen-eyed‘s speed.
Noman’s eyes snapped open and he finished his chanting. “We slow.”
“I’ve flattened the sail before this sudden gust,” she said. “The wind is unusually strong this morning, and I would not wish to run Keen-eyed against a snag or submerged log at a fast speed.”
“But thou say her protection eyes were… fixed the last full moon,” the apprentice said.
“Yes; but Keen-eyed has been in my mothers’ clan for three generations because we are careful.” She looked at Noman. “Do not worry. We’re still making very good time.”
He nodded slowly, his brows brought together as though considering choices before him. “We lucky… in thy capable hands, Joshi Shodisdaughter.”
“This wind is quite lucky for you,” she said, then turned the conversation to pointing out landmarks along the shore.
She wondered about her passengers. The younger pilgrim seemed harmless, if a little nervous. So far all Noman had done—besides throwing a few extra coins around to add weight to his requests—was chant prayers in a foreign tongue.
If his chants were prayers and not spells.
But maybe spells and prayers were very alike where they came from.
She would keep close watch on them. No pilgrims—and their trade—would come to Long Lake if something happened to the well. If he and the young pilgrim were tricky magicians, well, she had her charms, too, in the forms of a spar with a sharp iron hook and her dagger.
The temple—its curving, stone walls and five arcing towers greened by years of algae—perched on a drowned islet. A broken spur of jagged basalt trailed from the islet toward the distant, dark red cliffs of the shore.
Water lapped at the temple’s foundation.
“See,” Noman said. “Waters recedeth farther.”
“Yes,” she said. “Another stroke of luck for you.” She did not trust his luck. For the waters to fall so quickly was outside the normal ways of the lake.
She swung the tiller and steered Keen-eyed aslant the temple. “These rocks once formed a causeway when the lake was lower. They say the road was broken by bad magic.”
The apprentice said, “In the story I readed, the last priestess looked for getting away from the king and called forth….”
He was a book loving pilgrim. In the hours in his company, he had alluded to more books than Joshi had cousins.
Keen-eyed drew closer to the rocky islet.
The temple always reminded Joshi of a smooth river stone, and its shape might explain how it remained preserved from the lake’s currents. Its only flat surfaces were its stairs and floors. The outer walls, about three man-heights high, formed a large circular enclosure. They curved inward slightly before flaring outward at their tops. Four circular towers sat at cardinal points; a larger fifth tower rose from the temple’s center. Any timbers for the roofs had floated or rotted away decades ago.
She sailed past and steered Keen-eyed toward a line of stone posts rising from shallow water. They glistened along their edges where algae dried. Ages ago they were probably used for hitching horses. It was a common place to tie boats. A small black lake crab, clinging to one of the posts, plunked into the water as Keen-eyed‘s prow came near and her gilded eyes flashed sunlight at it.
Joshi released the sail’s boom and let the wind push the boat by her mast. She steered for a post more deeply submerged than her usual mooring place: not so close to the temple so that Keen-eyed‘s hull would be damaged by the gravelly shore if the water fell more, but not so far that they’d have to swim.
The lake was strange today, and she didn’t like to think what would happen if Keen-eyed drifted away. She double-checked the knots before hefting the boat’s anchor over the side.
“Here we are.” She gathered up another line, grabbed her hooked spar, and slipped into the lake. “I’m going to secure Keen-eyed.”
“We go,” the apprentice said. “Thou can stay here. We see way.”
Before she could say anything, her two passengers splashed into the lake and headed toward the temple.
She used the spar to feel her way to the stone posts. Silt and fine mud oozed beneath her feet. Quickly, she secured the line around a post and followed the pilgrims.
The temple entrance was a circular opening recessed in a circular indentation. Noman hurried to it, but slowed his progress after he slipped and nearly fell into his apprentice’s arms. Joshi caught up to them, using her spar as a cane.
The apprentice forced a smile. “Truly, no troubleth we.”
Noman only grunted.
“You paid me well to be your guide,” Joshi said. “So I’ll guide you to the well.”
They drew nearer. No other tracks disturbed the silt left in the receding lake’s retreat. “Look.” She pointed. “We are the first visitors this season.”
“Good,” Noman said. “My prayers answered,” he added.
According to Joshi’s grandmother, brightly colored tiles of red, yellow, and blue had decorated the temple with interwoven patterns. Now, after generations of inundation, the curving walls were plain dark green stone, and the only mosaics were formed by silt and algae on the once-submerged floors.
An old-looking femur and part of a crushed pelvis, slimed green, rested against the inner wall beyond the entrance.
“Someone who angered the guardian of the temple,” Joshi said, using this opportunity to issue a warning. The bones were too big to be a child’s, and she wondered how long they had lain under the lake. “It is not well to stray in the temple unless the sun shines brightly.” A red tarnish along what she had mistaken as a bone splinter caught her eye. “Oh.” She pointed to a broken chain leading from the fragment. “A prayer scroll.”
Noman bent down and picked up the rolled lead. Small white flakes fell as he eased it open.
Joshi and the apprentice both gasped.
“It is not wise—” she began.
He studied the unrolled lead. “Small… power in scroll. Is not harm.” He crumpled the sheet in his fist.
She liked Noman less with each moment. The sleeping spirits of the sunken temple deserved respect. She glanced at the apprentice, whose face was ashen.
“Let us continue,” Joshi said. The sooner they left their scrolls in the well, the sooner they could leave.
She led them into the temple’s first courtyard.
The afternoon sun, although not at her summer zenith, was still high enough in the sky to shine on the ground, but the moist walls seeped coldness in the shadows. The sounds of wind and waves grew softer. Then the arcing path brought them into the damp shadow of the central tower. The air smelled of wet stone and fish.
Daylight shining in an archway ahead drew them forward. Joshi paused before going through. “Here is the well of the temple,” she said softly. She gave silent thanks it was after noon and that the southern tower did not shade the place.
A stone lip circled the well, which took up most of the second courtyard. The early afternoon sun shone over the walls, but did not penetrate far into the well’s water.
Steps hugged the well’s curved sides. One particularly dry season, Joshi had seen down seven steps to a landing and the hint of more stairs. Today, the water swelled just below the first step.
Noman barged past her with a backward glance. He barked a command at his apprentice and hurried to the edge of the well. He held one hand palm-down over the water, clutched his scroll with his other hand, and chanted. The dark green waters bubbled, and an odor of disturbed lake bed rose. Joshi recalled her younger brother playing with swampy gasses.
The apprentice turned to her. He was pale, and his eyes were wide with agitation. “Thank for guideth us. Thou should go. My master to summon salvation of our people.”
“Salvation?” Joshi asked. “You’ll anger the guardian. Noman! Stop!”
But Noman glared and kept chanting.
“Please. Go,” the apprentice said. “He grant favor.” He hurried to the well’s first stone step.
She hung back at the entrance.
The apprentice glanced her way. “My task to bring the guardian of the lake to us.”
She was aghast. “Bring?”
“Go. He offer me the choose to use thou instead. Go quick. This is something I do must.”
Noman’s chanting picked up in pitch.
Magicians. They were more trouble than they were worth.
The apprentice turned back to the well, shakily took off his scroll and dangled it, glinting, over the water like a lure.
“Throw it in!” Joshi yelled. “The guardian!”
A large black shadow appeared through the murky green water.
Joshi stepped back. So did Noman.
Eyes the size of her fist—on the ends of hinged, chitinous stalks—emerged, then a large black claw, larger than an oar.
The apprentice inched back, but still held out his scroll.
Her grandmother had been wrong: the temple well’s guardian really was a giant black lake crab.
The guardian smelled of rotted fish. It hesitated, halfway out of the well near the apprentice, spiked legs moving back and forth along the well’s lip. Wiry bristles grew along the back of its legs. Joshi wasn’t sure if the sunlight kept it in the water, or if it struggled to find purchase on the steps. A tarnished prayer scroll swung from one of the crab’s leg spurs; there must be hundreds of the leaden prayers at the well’s bottom.
Its eyes followed the apprentice.
A claw stabbed forward at the dangling scroll.
He howled and fell back, clutching his mangled right hand. Blood flowed into the water.
Noman kept chanting.
Joshi had to stop him somehow—drive him from the well. Maybe she could repeat her brother’s trick with the water’s fumes. She jumped forward, whirled her spar with all her might and grazed the iron tip against the sun-warmed stone floor. A meager spark jumped off the tip.
Noman broke off his chanting. “Stop!” he commanded.
She jumped closer to the well’s edge and whirled again. More sparks jumped from the tip and showered into the well.
The guardian lunged. Its giant claw snapped her spar in half. She let go and stumbled away from the well.
Flame sprang to life from the water with a chuffing pop.
Heat from the water-borne flame warmed her cheek.
“Northern sow!” Noman sprang back, violent intent shining in his eyes.
Good. She had spoiled his spell.
The guardian screeched.
The back of a claw slammed into Joshi. She crumpled to the stone floor, winded.
The crab flailed and fell back into the well’s depths. The water fizzled and flamed.
The apprentice’s moans echoed in the courtyard.
The butt half of her snapped spar lay an arm’s-length away.
Noman drew a dagger and advanced toward her.
Joshi rolled closer to her spar. She winced where the guardian had smashed her.
She didn’t like knife fights. She needed to make him think she was harmless. “Please,” she said, in the same alarmed tone her sister-in-law used when confronted with a spider’s web. “Don’t hurt me.”
He spat on the floor and pointed his dagger at her in some straight-armed, foreign style of stance.
She scrambled to her feet. Scooped up the snapped spar. Drew her own dagger and wiggled it like a novice.
He sneered. The flames from the well outlined him and threw his shadow over her. One hand reached up to his silver scroll. He drew himself up. He wasn’t going to fight her, he was going to bespell her!
“Hey!” She lunged, flicking the spar so it cracked against Noman’s dagger hand.
He yelped and cursed. His dagger clattered on the ground.
She rushed and knocked into him.
He stumbled backward, tripped over the apprentice, and fell into the well.
His frantic splashing ended with a shriek and a bubbling gurgle.
The flame above the churning waters flared briefly, then died.
Joshi swore she would never eat crab again.
The apprentice lay near the well’s edge. She wondered what to do with him. He had tried to warn her. “We must leave,” she said.
He wasn’t moving. Maybe he had lost too much blood. The sight of it staining the ground made her ill. When she tried to haul him over her shoulder, needles of pain ran up her right side and she nearly dropped him. She concentrated on how she would embroider the tale of his rescue as she dragged him away.
Joshi sailed Keen-eyed for Rockpoint. The forge workers there would know about hurts like the apprentice’s. Besides, the wind blew in that direction and her side complained if she tacked. She steadied herself against the rudder.
His eyes opened halfway there. She watched him watching the sail as she trimmed it to the wind.
“Thy hair singed,” he said.
“So is yours,” she said.
He examined his bloody and bound hand. “My master?”
“In the well.”
He closed his eyes then. “Why not thou push me in?”
“You remind me of my younger brother. But I saved you anyway.”
He grunted.
“See,” she said. “He never laughs at my jokes, either.”
They sailed in silence for a few moments.
“I can’t call you ‘apprentice’ forever. What’s your name?”
“Tuan.”
“Tuan, I don’t know how a monster like the guardian would be the salvation of your people. Crabs are dumb scavengers. But using one for revenge—”
“Just beginning,” he said. “Her spawn would be army. Power from old scrolls and his spells—”
She cut him off. “Whatever Noman planned has failed.” She let him stew over that for a moment. She tried to imagine what had brought Tuan to the lake. “So, you seem like a scholar. Not bad, a scholar can make a living here, writing letters for people. Maybe you know some simple, wholesome charms? Maybe you could help a merchant keep records?”
“You offer task?”
“No,” she said. “Keen-eyed and I don’t make enough money.”
“Oh.” He stared at the tip of the mast.
“I’m guessing that old Noman had you so focused on helping him find that salvation you were talking about, that you haven’t thought about much else.” She wondered how Noman would bring an army of guardian crabs to wherever his home was, and suspected part of his plan had been to become overlord of the lake.
Tuan continued to stare up at the mast.
“I’m also guessing you have enough money to last a month, maybe two,” she said. “If you can find some way to earn your keep, you can give yourself time to heal. After that…”
And if you stay long, she thought, we might learn if there are any more schemers working with you.
“I my people failed,” he said.
“By not letting Nomad sacrifice you to a crab?” He really was like her brother, Kende. “If it’s that important, find another way.”
“I—” He tried to sit up and winced when he moved his hand.
“Rest,” she said. “I think you have a week or two before you have to make any choices. I truly hope you choose well.”
He sank back to the deck and continued to stare at the mast.
Joshi leaned against the tiller and thought about the coming season. She supposed the guardian still lived, if it hadn’t choked on Noman. The temple stood, and its stories would still be told.
Stories—old ones in books in a place far away—had brought Noman and Tuan here. After today there would need to be a new story, one that would bring the right kind of pilgrim.
…And the guardian accepted the old pilgrim’s self-sacrifice to bring peace to his people. The thought of making Noman a noble peacemaker in song and story made her grimace… but…. Maybe vengeful fire from heaven would make a better story. It would explain why she and Tuan were singed.
Rockpoint was hours away. She set to work on her tale.
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John Burridge grew up in Corvallis, Oregon. After stints in Northfield, Minnesota, and at Arcosanti, Arizona, he returned to the Pacific Northwest and eventually settled down with his husband in Eugene, Oregon. He is an alumnus of the Eugene Wordos, which he co-chaired from 2004 to 2018. By day he is a computer support technician, and by night he is a fantasy and science fiction writer. He is probably over-caffeinated. You can read more about John and his publishing history at https://johnburridge.blogspot.com/p/bio-writing-credits.html.