The Last Lagharis Pt. 01

The Laghari Sisters were in a bind, and for once Misha had no answer. It was a problem that resisted her craft and ingenuity, and which no prayer or magical spell could undo.

Their brother was dead.

That was problematic because he was their only living hope for a future. By marrying him off, they had meant to bring in a dowry, and with that dowry, they would have paid the marriage-prices for husbands of their own. It would have been tight. They would have had to split their brother's price and add in some of their own meager savings. But they could have managed it. They could have scraped through as they always did.

But no woman in all the mountains would pay to marry a dead man. Dead men could not work, nor could they provide children, nor could they set for those children a fatherly example of patience and dedication. For a dead man, there was nothing to do except see him off to the next world and wish him better luck than he'd had in this one.

Their brother had tried hard to fight the illness. He had wanted to live. And the sisters had done their best to hold him on this side of death. It had been a heroic battle, a coming together of what little remained of the Laghari family. Their dearly departed mother would have been no less proud of them for the fact that they had failed. They had done everything in their power, even prayer. Misha had thought prayer to be a waste of time, but now she was glad that at least they had tried it. If they hadn't, she would have been tormented forever by the thought that it might have saved him.

Misha was helpless as she stewed on these thoughts. The weight of them pinned her. But her sister Ayani had cried her tears already, and was now through with grieving. She always had seen farther ahead. So she left Misha to her thoughts, strapped on her snowshoes and lumbered out of the house with the news on her trembling lips. One by one, she brought back friends and neighbors, and those friends and neighbors brought consolation gifts of flat bread and butter tea. They sat in a dreary circle, mumbling things like, "what are you going to do now?" or "what a tragedy for your family." They speculated on what might have been if he had lived. A few of them, no doubt, had wanted to marry him. They had wanted to take him home and add his efforts to their own and watch their children grow strong and vital off the backs of their effort.

But there was only so much weeping to do, even for the loss of a man in his prime. Eventually, the grievers left, one by one, as they had come, and too soon the Laghari sisters were alone again. Ayani asked, "What comes next?"

Misha had been dreading that question. A leak in the roof was a question she could answer. A marauding puma, she could answer. A sickness, she could answer. But what to do without their brother, that was a question for Ayani. All Misha had was a half-baked plan, and she knew better than to give voice to it. So Misha walked out of the house.

The house was a squat, round thing of stone bricks, shored up against snowstorm and wind. Inside, room was scarce, but there was no such scarcity outside. Cool, fresh, scentless air chilled her face, and she welcomed it. The cloudless blue-black sky yawned overhead. Her house, and the several dozen that made up the village, sat in a saddle-shaped valley between two mountains. To the north, the valley steepened to a high, rocky slope where meltwater made the barest beginnings of what would become a great river in the lowlands. To the south, the valley swept down to reveal the vastness of the mountains. Each mountain was a banner honoring the glory of the gods who erected it, a banner of grey stone and pure white snow and green-brown vegetation. A priestess had once told Misha that it was impossible to behold these mountains and feel pride, because the mountains humbled all. But Misha found that it gave her pride simply that the gods allowed her to make her home in them. To become part of them.

And in this vastness, Misha could think a little more clearly. In a world so vast, it seemed impossible that she and Ayani were ruined forever. The gods faced mortal women with tragedy and heartbreak in order to test them, and mortals had only themselves to blame for failing.

Misha ambled back into the house, full of purpose. From a wicker basket, the oldest one in the house, she drew out their oldest treasure.

It was a crossbow. Not the old, flawed thing with which Old Binsa and her husband had written the first bloody chapter of Laghari family history. This was an elegant masterwork of wood and steel, bought with their loot after many years of war. And it had proven itself in the hands of Old Binsa's eldest daughter, and that daughter's niece and so on down the line.

"Misha, what are you thinking?"

Misha looked and saw that Ayani wore an expression of pure, warm curiosity. It was not the disapproval she'd come to tolerate or the grudging respect she'd slowly earned. It was an honest question.

"I'm thinking of Binsa," she said. "I don't think she would want us to lose hope." Then she remembered her piety. "Of course, we follow Mother Peace..." Unlike their less civilized ancestors. "...so war is far beneath us. Only... their courage. We have to show their courage."

"It takes courage to face defeat with dignity," said Ayani. "If we drink the black tea, we can go to the next world presentably. It will be quick and painless. And dignified."

Misha had been afraid of this. "Sister, why are you so quick to give up?"

"At the battle of Bokhir Golyn, Great Uncle Baburam took his own life rather than allow himself to be dishonored by the enemy. Why should we not follow his example?"

"Well... we can always take black tea later. But before that, we can at least try."

"Try what?"

The plan was still little more than half-baked, but it would have to do. "I have always been quite the outdoorswoman. And the pilgrims say that one who's wise with the outdoors can make plenty of money downhill."

Ayani looked down at the crossbow, and her lips curled with disapproval. That wasn't rare. But there was fear in her eyes, and that was. "You are speaking of violent work. Lawbreaking work. I would rather die than live off banditry. And you would too, Misha, I know it."

"I don't mean banditry. Just something like..." and she was forced to confront the fact that she did not know what exactly she might do with her skills. "Something that's not so bad. There's no reason to fear danger—just look at our history!"

"Come to your senses, Misha! You just said that war is beneath us. You said it yourself!"

"Forget about war. I'll be a guard somewhere." An idea brightened her. "I'll protect a monastery! I can do that, Ayani!"

"The monasteries don't hire outsiders as guards." She gave a heavy, worn-out sigh. "You are looking for excuses. All of our family is on the far side of death. All of them." At those last three words, her face softened a little, and the contempt and disapproval were gone like morning fog. Underneath, Misha could see pain, an old pain she knew well.

Misha took Ayani by the hands. "Ayani. I miss Mom and Dad too. I want to see them. I would love to see them now. But suppose it is possible for us to move on. How do you think they would feel if we gave up without trying? How would you feel if it was your children?"

Ayani's mask crumbled a little further. Then she hugged Misha so she couldn't see it shatter. Ayani wept, squeezed Misha, moaned like a dying animal. Her pain touched Misha's, and soon both of them cried out their grief to their ancestors, grief that could only come out between the two of them.

"I am blessed with you," said Ayani. "Of course. They would not stop here."

"Unbroken Alisha went twenty days without food so she could follow her sister across the dead plains."

"And her sister left a lantern out for her. She never gave up hope." Ayani wiped her wet eyes. "Neither will we." She smiled. "Do you remember how Grandmother said she'd prepared to go on a pilgrimage to the Hanging Lake?"

Misha remembered the story, of course. Grandmother had spent the year gathering the supplies she would need to reach the lake and leave a sufficient offering so that the gods might allow her to have a child. Then, a week before she had planned to leave, she found one already growing in her womb. "It probably won't be that easy," she said.

Ayani nodded. "Probably not."

Misha took up the crossbow, watched Ayani for objections and got none. "Let us prepare," she said.

"No, Misha, only you. I can't."

"What would stop us? Come, Ayani, this could be the tale we tell to our children. The Ayani sisters, last of the line, setting out into the world together!"

"My place is here. I am not meant for the rough days that you have ahead of you. And after all, someone must make sure you have a home to go back to. We must always have that." Once again, Ayani softened, showed a glimpse of the pain behind her face.

Misha understood. Ayani would rather die than be homeless, and that was a cliff she could never be talked down from. So Misha made the preparations to set out alone.

It took disappointingly little time to gather everything. Misha wanted to savor the heady feeling of an adventure about to begin, the sheer intoxicating possibility of the dice rattling in her hand as she prepared to throw them. But all good things had to end.

Soon, she stood outside the house, loaded with everything they could still spare, equipped for the worst and full of hopes for the best. Ayani had said nothing to her on the way out, but she knew she hadn't heard the last of her.

Her voice came, as predictable as the sun. "Misha..." she rushed out the door, face blue and strained with the weight of one last heavy thing to say. "I will work as hard as I can on my own. I owe it to you to tell you... if somehow I'm able to scrape together the money for a man, I'm getting him for myself."

"That's only fair. I won't be here."

"If I hear you are in danger, I'll be in no position to help."

"I can protect myself."

But that didn't clear the blue cast from Ayani's face. It was bluer than ever. "If... if I hear of your death, I won't be able to see you off. Please..." she stopped short of asking her to give it up. They had had that talk already. "You always were the one to see the light side."

"And I'll bring light back with me. Goodbye, Ayani."

And she strode down the side of the valley.

The Laghari family was now reduced to two, and for now it had split down the middle, each woman alone. As Misha looked down the mountainside at the rocky, perilous hike down, she started to see the appeal in lying down to die with Ayani.

But then she looked up, and the breadth of the world answered her. Again, she felt the dice in her fingers, ready to be cast. Again, she felt her future on her shoulders. In her hands.

Again, she felt hope.