Fires of Justice

Part 4:  Penitent – The Curse of Pride

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Naliara of Dalenvar walked the streets of that town she was named for, late on the night of a full moon, heading slowly for her home, not hurrying at all.  The spring was kind, that year, and the night only slightly chilled.  The simple act of walking was enough to keep her warm – and, had it not been enough, the flush from a well-received performance would have more than made up the difference.

She was a beautiful girl, at sixteen, and she knew it, and bore herself appropriately.  She was small, slender, but still undoubtedly female, her average-sized (though well-shaped) breasts and hips accentuated by a small waist.  Her hair was the white of new-fallen snow, shimmering faintly in the moonlight, hanging halfway down her back.  Her face was almost heart-shaped, with high cheekbones, and a generous, smiling mouth.  Her eyes were violet, adding as much to her faintly exotic appearance as her white hair.  She wore a simple purple dress, the same shade as her eyes, and a pair of dancing slippers.

Sometimes, not even aware that she was doing it, Naliara sang, as she walked – and her voice was such that the few people she passed stopped, and listened, until she stopped singing, or passed from their hearing.

It was nearly a miracle, that voice.  Rich, and full, an alto, but with astonishing range, loaded with the power that comes from years of singing, and the emotion that comes from simple joy in singing, her voice was her fame.

Naliara had first sung before she talked, according to her mother.  She had sung whenever she could, entertaining herself for hours on end, just repeating the songs that she had heard, from her mother, her mother’s friends, the travelers that they met, anyone at all, who sang where the child could hear it.

And from the beginning, her voice had been a joy to hear.  As she got older, learned to listen to her own voice, her voice and her control only got better.

When Naliara was ten, and on the way to Dalenvar with her mother, Helraa, returning to the city of her mother’s birth, they stopped in an inn, one night, and, after supper, Naliara, already a devotee of Bragala, the God of Music, had begun singing.

The inn had been crowded, and busy, the only inn present at a major corssroads.  Yet, after only a minute of Naliara’s singing, it had been dead quiet – save for Naliara’s voice.

And, when the song was over, a man had approached, and asked permission to sit.  He had been carrying a harp over one shoulder, and Naliara’s eyes had lit up at the sight of the instrument, so her mother had allowed it.

The man had introduced himself as Adric of Jerasenn – and Naliara had gasped aloud.  Adric of Jerasenn was the most famous bard in all the world of Agatsin, a man whose voice was legend, and whose name was spoken in the halls of kings.

And he had offered the child an apprenticeship, under him.

Naliara, nearly in tears, had refused.  She loved her mother, and wasn’t of an age where she could bear to leave her.  Adric had not pressed, had merely said that, should their paths cross again, when Naliara was older, he would ask again.

They had made Dalenvar, and settled in.  Naliara’s mother was a seamstress of no small skill, and had the money to set up her own shop, complete with an apartment above the place for  herself and her daughter.

And, their first winter there, Helraa had come down with the coughing sickness.  It was almost always fatal, unless caught early.  Fortunately, Helraa had seen it before, and sent Naliyana for a cleric, early in the sickness.

The cleric had banished the sickness – but the aftereffects lingered.  Helraa was often too tired to work.  Her business began to fail.  And, the farther it fell, the less medicine they could afford – and the sicker Helraa got.

It took almost two years for Helraa to die.  She had passed one night when Naliara was twelve, and the girl had been left homeless, quite suddenly.  And the men her mother owed money to had allowed Naliara to take only a few of her own clothes from the house.

Her first night alone, she was turned out of her mother’s house by creditors.  She slept that night in a park, under some bushes.

The next day, she turned to the only skill she had, to make money.  She found a street corner, and simply started singing, standing in front of cracked a wooden bowl that she had found in a rubbish heap.

In two hours, the bowl was full to overflowing.

That was when she met Koss, the owner of one of Dalenvar’s finest inns.  He had been watching, and listening – and had seen the potential of her voice.

Koss had offered Naliara a place to live, three meals a day, and all the tips she could collect – minus ten percent for him – to sing in his inn, in the evenings.  She had accepted eagerly, and the Inn of the Silver Blade had suddenly begun doing even more business than before.  Rapidly, very rapidly, the partnership made Naliara wealthy, and took Koss from merely wealthy to actually rich.

And, when Naliara was 14, Koss rented a hall for her to sing in – and that was the real beginning of her fame.

The hall sold out, the first night.  Almost 2000 people came to hear her sing.

Naliara had more money than she had ever seen, from just that first night.

When the rental on the hall was up, Koss, now officially Naliara’s agent of business, rented the largest hall in all of Dalenvar.

The first night, the hall was “only” half full.  Some 6000 people, in a city of 50,000, came to see her.

The second night, two days later, the hall was three-quarters full.

She sold it out, her third night.  12,400 people came to hear her sing.

Soon, Naliara was singing twice a week, and making so much money that she doubted she could ever spend it all – and that was with giving fully half of what she made to the Temples of Bragala and Arteneh.

At sixteen, she was the second richest citizen in all of Dalenvar – and Koss was the first.

And, earlier this month, the King of Phoristan, the land in which Dalenvar lay, and the largest country in the world of Agatsin, had invited her to sing at the annual Spring Festival, held just after the last thaw.  So many people had been in attendance that, for the first time since she was a child, Naliara actually felt stage fright.

But when she had started singing, the 30,000 people in the audience had fallen silent, and listened.  And, after the performance, the King himself had given Naliara a gift, a dress.  Long-sleeved and flowing, made of silk, with a low neckline, and a hem that came a couple of inches below her knees.  The dress was purple (her favorite color), a dark shade, with some gray in it, that her mother had called “twilight purple.”

And it had been made by a woman who had, years ago, been an apprentice to Helraa, Naliara’s mother.  That alone made the dress priceless to Naliara.  That the King had known it, and sought out that woman to make the dress, because she had learned her craft from Naliara’s mother, made the dress twice as precious to the girl.

On returning to Dalenvar, Naliara had paid a full month’s earnings, to have the dress magically treated, so that it would never wrinkle, or fade.

Naliara smiled at the memory of the old King’s delight, when he had seen her tears of joy and gratitude over his gift.  And she opened her mouth, and began to sing.

For a time, she just walked, singing, not caring where she went.  Finally, about midnight, she turned for home.

She rounded a corner, and saw that a house ahead was on fire.  It was late, and there were no members of the City Guard about.  She ran for the house, listening for screams, trying to think of what to do.

As she got near, it got uncomfortably warm, and she started to back away – when she heard the cries of a child, a little girl by the voice, from inside the house.

Naliara ran through the door into the house, and started for the stairs, as the sound seemed to be coming from the second floor.  The fire had started, it seemed, at the back of the house, and she could still get in, to get the little girl out.

She had just set foot on the stair when the smoke of the fire began to get to her.  Naliara’s throat started burning, and she doubled over in a coughing fit.  She coughed for half a minute or so – then straightened, and began backing from the house, hands clasped desperately over her mouth.

Her mind was filled with memories of her mother, who had died of the coughing sickness – and the horrible, cracked and wasted thing that her mothers voice had become, as she grew more ill.

Her voice was all she had.  She could not bring herself to risk it.

Naliara ran out of the burning house, and began pounding on the door of the house next door – and then, on receiving no answer, the place across the street, then next to that, and so on.

It was the fifth house she tried, when she finally got an answer.  The man inside, dressed only in trousers, saw the fire, heard Naliara’s babblings about a child in the house, and ran across the way.

Even as he ran in, Naliara finally heard the bells of a fire alarm, raised by the City Guard.

A few moments later, the Watch was there, organizing a bucket brigade, and Naliara threw her own muscles to the task.  After a few minutes, the man who had gone in after the child came out, carrying a blanket-wrapped bundle the size of a child.

The girl had died, her lungs filled with smoke.  Seven years old, according to a neighbor, and dead far too young.

Naliara went home, then, sickened by the death of the child, and went to bed.

In the morning, when she woke, she got up, and, as was her custom, went to the window, and opened her mouth to sing a prayer to Bragala.

With the first notes of her song, the window shattered, and the frame broke away from the building, flying out to land in the street.

Naliara covered her mouth in fear, and stared.  After a moment, she opened her mouth, and tried again, as softly as she could.

The stone wall of her bedroom cracked, under the assault of her voice.

Oh, Gods and heroes! She thought, staring at the destruction her voice had caused.  What has happened to me?

_________________________________________________

Two weeks later, Naliara arrived in the city of Jerasenn, far north of Dalenvar, capital city of the land of Phoristan – and home of the Master Temple of Bragala.  Koss and an escort of ten soldiers rode with her to the Temple.  There was a priest waiting on the steps for them.  He asked that the soldiers wait in the gardens, and that Naliara and Koss come with him.  They did, Naliara’s heart beating faster with hope that the priests of her faith could help her.

The two were led to the offices of the High Priest, a man of fifty or so, who sat behind a desk covered with sheets of music.  He wore a grim look, and did not smile, when the two were brought into the room.

“High Priest Dioran,” Koss said, “I am here with my friend Naliara, to speak for her, as she cannot speak for herself.  Her voice – ”

“I know what has happened, Master Koss,” Dioran said, in a deep, commanding voice.  “Bragala himself informed me, the morning after it occurred.”

“Then can you explain it to us?” Koss asked.  “And can you help?”

“I can explain it,” Dioran said.  “But only Naliara can help it, and that will not be easy, or swift.  It is entirely possible that she may never be released from the curse that she bears.”

Naliara’s eyes widened in shock, as Koss said, “Curse?  What curse, High Priest Dioran?”

“The curse of her own pride,” Dioran said.  He grimaced, then, and, in a carefully neutral voice, said, “Bragala teaches that music, and song, exist to create joy, to ease sorrow, to make easier the occasionally harsh realities of the world.  Naliara, with a voice that was surely a gift of the Gods themselves, did much of such work, with that voice.

“Yet, two weeks ago, she let concern for her voice, pride in a thing that was a gift of the gods, bring about the death of a child.  An innocent child, who had no anger in her, or hatred – and the potential for much joy – including the joy she gave her parents, and the rest of her family.  That joy was taken, forever, by Naliara’s pride.

“And Bragala was angered, most angered.”

Naliara had pulled into herself, by the end of this short speech, and was sobbing silently, struggling desperately not to make a sound, lest she harm someone.

Letting his hand fall lightly on Naliara’s shoulder, for what comfort he could offer, Koss looked at the priest, and asked, “How may she be free of this curse, High Priest?”

“I know not, for certain,” Dioran admitted.  “For Bragala did not say.  He said only that she must learn humility, and self-sacrifice.  He did not say how this might be done.”

“Have you any thoughts on the matter, High Priest?” Koss asked.

“If she wishes, Naliara may stay here.”  Dioran stood, and moved around to stand next to Naliara, and let his hand rest lightly on her shoulder.  “She may serve at the temple, in whatever capacity she may, and wait for further word of what needs to be done to come from the Lord of Music.”

Naliara raised her head, then, and nodded frantically.

Anything, Lord Bragala! She thought.  Anything, to be allowed to sing again!

_________________________________________________

For three months, Naliara was a servant in the kitchens, doing dishes, helping prepare meals, taking out the waste, doing exactly as she was told, no matter how menial or degrading the work.

Thus having proved to Dioran that she really was willing to do whatever it took to be free, Naliara was released from these duties, and taught to read and write.  Her memory was absolutely perfect, allowing her to recall exactly things that she had heard and seen from the time of her sixth year or so on, so learning to read and write took almost no time.

She was told to write out the words and music to every song she had ever heard, that she could not find in the massive Library of Song, and she did just that.  It took most of a year.

The day she finished, she found Dioran, and handed him a note, asking to be taught as one of the Guardians of the Songs, the defenders of the Temples of Bragala, and, when needed, the soldiers of the Lord of Music.  She had seen them, of course, in her time here, practicing their combat art, an odd thing of tumbling, dance, and constant movement, very unlike the fighting styles of the soldiers she had known.

Dioran opened his mouth to refuse, and heard the voice of Bragala in his mind.

Teach her, that perfect baritone said.  Work her hard.  Drive her to excel.

“It will be done,” Dioran said aloud, to both his God, and Naliara.

For the next three years, almost, Naliara virtually lived for the Violent Dance, doing little more than eating, sleeping, and training.  At the end of that time, she was lean, and hard, having firm, solid muscle tone over all her body – and, the day after she was graduated, some three moons after her twentieth birthday, Naliara, Junior Guardian of the Songs, left the Master Temple of Bragala, seeking a path to forgiveness – and never returned.

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