Alara Unbroken - Doug Beyer [18]
It struck Ajani that although the tale of Marisi was going well, Jazal seemed preoccupied. He was gesturing wildly with his axe, which Ajani thought the pride must be taking as warrior spirit. But Ajani knew that Jazal never swung a weapon recklessly, and that it must mean something was bothering him.
“The two can never be severed from one another,” said Jazal. “The Nacatl people are both head and heart. Although tonight we honor Marisi, fallen hero of the Breaking of the Coil, we must also think of those who live up in the cloud jungles on the mountain slopes, and thank them for their contribution to our identities.”
The pride cheered again, but uncertainly, as Jazal’s words veered from the usual Festival traditions. Jazal didn’t look down at the crowd, Ajani noticed, but up at the night sky.
Jazal had proven himself time and again as a fierce fighter, but in some ways, he was the furthest from being a Marisian hero of anyone in their pride. In his private moments with Ajani, Jazal shared insights that revealed the profound depths of his mind—doubts about the heroism of Marisi, and doubts even about the schism that had divided the Nacatl race.
Someone else seemed distracted as well. Ajani noticed that his shaman friend Zaliki had not cheered with the others, which was strange—the Festival was her favorite celebration of the year. Even stranger, she rose and slipped away into the darkness, going off by herself in the middle of the hadu, the pride’s greatest moment of community.
Something was troubling Zaliki—perhaps it was Ajani himself. Ajani knew he had been short with her before, ungrateful in the face of her healing and advice. As Jazal continued to speak, Ajani decided to follow her.
She moved up and up, climbing the trails that zigzagged back and forth across the cliff face that formed the pride’s den. Ajani followed her, watching her pass the cavern entrances of lair after lair. She moved with her usual grace and silence, the deep auburn stripes on her back crisscrossing in the torchlight.
Zaliki entered the cavern set highest into the cliff-side—Jazal’s lair. Again, that was strange. When he entered, Ajani startled her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I saw you leave from the fireside. Are you all right?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I merely wanted to … retrieve this, my talisman.” She held one of her shamanic talismans in her hand, the one that Jazal had given her, braided with the fur from his own mane. “I was counseling the kha earlier, and … I left it here.”
Ajani cocked an eyebrow at her. “Not enjoying the speech tonight?” he asked.
“No, no, it’s not that. Just the talisman. And to get some fresh air. Look … Ajani … I should go. I need to be alone. You go back and enjoy the hadu. I’ll talk to you again later.”
“All right,” was all Ajani managed before she left. As she swept past him, she bumped into some of Jazal’s belongings, knocking them over onto the cave floor. She paused, but left in a hurry.
Ajani could see that she was not her graceful self—something was definitely wrong. But if she didn’t want to open up to him about it, there wasn’t much Ajani could do.
It was only after she had left that Ajani saw the markings on the wall of Jazal’s lair, revealed when Zaliki had knocked down a fur hanging. They were simple chalk sketches of a white lion’s face. As he looked, he saw several versions of the white lion in a stack of scrolls on the floor of Jazal’s lair, each one bearing strange notes in Jazal’s hand. Every sketch had the same distinguishing features: white fur, and a missing left eye. And there was an older scroll on the floor, yellowed and aged, bearing markings written in human script. It showed the symbol of the one-eyed white lion’s face too. His face—as if the humans truly had been hunting him in particular.
There was another scroll in Jazal’s script, apparently a translation of the humans