The First Life of Tanan (18 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

Tanan’s eyes snapped open.  The ground was shaking violently.  Across the sea, a plume of ash was climbing into the sky over Komisan.  He stumbled to his feet and watched as the silhouette of Komisan, hazy across the sea, began to collapse in upon itself.

He stood on the beach with tears streaming down his face, watching the destruction he had caused.

And then the sea started to pull back from the beach, leaving the sand and rock exposed far from the shore.

The earth was still shuddering when Tanan saw the water coming back.  A roiling wall of water was speeding toward the beach.  It was moving impossibly fast.  Tanan was filled with terror as he watched the water bear down on him.

He ran up the beach and grabbed his pack and his canteens from the tent.  There was no place for him to go, no place he could run.

Tanan created a protective bubble around himself, pulling energy from the air around himself to fortify it.  The water slammed into Tanan’s bubble and sent him tumbling violently away from the shoreline.  He knew he was going to die.

After what seemed like an eternity, the violence stopped.  Tanan realized he had been screaming.  The water had carried him miles inland and deposited him in a large outcropping of rocks in the foothills of the mountains that ran along the shoreline.  All around him were trees and other vegetation that had been torn from the ground and carried in the water.

Tanan uncurled himself and lay quietly inside his protective bubble, sobbing, trying to slow his breathing and calm himself.  He was sore from being tumbled, but he didn't think anything was broken.

He let his protective bubble go and climbed to the top of the rocks.  The water was receding.  Tanan wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his cassock.  He thought it would be wise to get to higher ground in case another wave came.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

Tanan camped on the side of the mountain for two days, resting and staring at the sea where Komisan had been.  He slept.  His body healed, but he didn’t know if he would ever recover from what he had done.

When he finally climbed down from his rocky camp, he walked north along the beach.  He would travel to Jesera.  Hopefully the second Lataki army hadn’t already been there.

When he discovered some of the army’s equipment on the beach to the north, he investigated further inland and found bodies of Komisani soldiers that had been caught in the wave.  The second army.  Tanan knew there could have been no survivors.

•        •        •

Tanan didn’t have to go to Jesera.  Not yet.  He would visit Ohlara.  He wasn’t ready to face Figis, and he didn’t want the attention he would get among the other Abbots anyway.

After a month with Ohlara, Tanan was feeling better.  The old Abbot was wise, and their long talks helped Tanan come to terms with what he had done.  He knew that he would never forget what he had done, but that one day his wounds would heal.

•        •        •

Jesera was as he had left it.  His arrival in the valley created a stir. Everyone wanted to know what had happened. And when the story had been told, faces changed.  People he had known for years became distant.

Figis was happy to see Tanan, but visibly saddened by the news he brought.

“What else could I have done, Figis?” Tanan asked.

Figis didn’t have an answer, but Tanan couldn’t stand to see the look of disappointment on his face.

After two days at Jesera, Tanan packed the things he wanted to keep, the blue book his grandfather had given him.  A couple of books that had belonged to his father, and Soama.  The rest of his possessions, he gave away or traded to a farmer friend he knew for some non-Abbot clothes.

It was time for Tanan to leave. He said goodbye to Figis, and the rest of his friends at Jesera.  He would travel far to the east, maybe to find the Surani, maybe farther.

Tanan’s life as an Abbot of Jesera was over.  It was time for him to find a new place in the world and begin a second life.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andrew Riley lives near Denver, Colorado with his beautiful wife, handsome son, faithful hound and three arrogant cats who refuse to carry his mail.  He has eaten Kangaroo in Australia, crossed Bulgaria by taxi, and bathed in a Korean bathhouse, which is not as exciting as you might think.  The First Life of Tanan is his debut novel.  You can connect with him online at andrewriley.net

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Writing a novel is a lot of work.  After writing The First Life of Tanan, I think I have a better understanding for what a collaborative endeavor it really is. I owe a heartfelt thanks to Aaron, Duane and Doug for reading my first draft and giving me the kind of critiques that made this book, hopefully, readable. Sara and Trudy were my awesome proofreaders. If there are any spelling errors in this book, it’s only because I couldn’t stop editing pages after you’d fixed everything. Thank you to Alicia and Sally (and all the kids who sent me artwork) for giving me a beautiful first-edition cover. Thank you Matt for forcing me to revise the final cover art until it was right. The people who read my first draft as I posted it every day, you kept me energized to keep writing and eventually win my first National Novel Writing Month. A super-mega thank you to my wife and best friend, Anita, for encouraging me, listening to me while I talked out story lines and for editing this mess. Maybe I could have done this without you, but I probably wouldn’t have. And finally, thank you to everyone who reads this. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.