Sunfall

[CuttleFish2.0]

Hello!

As a warning (an excuse), Sunfall is still very much a story in the draft stages though it is outlined out to several more chapters, much is as yet in a state needing a lot of work. I welcome feedback and criticism, so long as it's polite and insightful; even if it's just you saying 'I found this boring' so please comment away.

The eventual plan is to post the story more regularly as a serial, but for the time being as I work on it to establish character voice and the overall feeling chapters will be posted irregularly and slowly (possibly more than a month between chapters).

I hope you enjoy it.

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Chapter 1

His feet pounding against stone Soli pushed himself up and onward even as he heard the distant sound of another of Deylos' towering spires of glass and spell-wrought metal crashing to the ground. Once the wide promenade would have been a smooth ascent up to the crest of the hill, now it was broken and uneven; its careful masonry jostled into a treacherous tangle. Thick dust choked not only the air — tasting faintly now of copper, like those medallions Kiestre's priests handed out on High Mercy Days — but his throat as well. Heart hammering up through his chest and into his throat Soli struggled up the rise as dust and sweat mixed in a cake of grime on his face and arms and legs. Around him other people ran too, some stumbled and fell behind while others overtook Soli and dashed ahead.

Then there were the people who weren't moving. Those shaking, huddled shapes in the lees and shadows of buildings. Those too tired to move or too broken by what they'd seen. Figures sprawled in the rubble, bodies reduced to mangled collections of limbs and meat that no longer housed even the faintest spark of life.

He ignored all those. Soli focuses mostly on the way ahead, at the rise of the city beyond the hill looking still so quiet and tranquil and undisturbed that he knows if he can reach it he will be safe.

And so he misses the bit of the street sticking up in his path; a bit of brick dislodged by the tremors, one of thousands, that the edge of his sandal catches on. He stumbles forward and falls, just managing to catch himself palms out. Tiny shards of stone cut into the soft flesh of his hands and sharp bolts of pain shoot up from his knees.

When he scrambles back Soli leaves behind faint smears of blood.

His knees protests, screaming in agony as he struggles forward at a hobbling run. But he doesn't stop. Won't. Can't stop.

Stopping is death.

Overhead the sky is clear and blue as Lythra, middle Daughter of the Five and Patron of Genius, burns bright and high just as she would on any other day of high summer. Had he any attention to spare for such details and were he perhaps more devout than most boys of twelve Soli might notice and muse that it is not fitting that such death and destruction to happen under such an auspicious sky, that instead the sky should be dark and shrouded, storming even. But it was instead a fine morning.

Perfect for a family jaunt to the park — named after some hero of the Days of Illumination Soli thinks, or maybe a famous battle? History is not his best subject — with his mother and father. Ostra and the others were going to meet with them later, his older sisters and younger brother coming back from a trip to the theatre and Soli just back from staying the night at Talwyn's. He had just been telling his parents about the crystal array his friends' father had showed them, meant to help track weather or something, when they first heard the boom. At first he hadn't really paid attention, figuring it was just someone setting off fireworks or some construction or something like that, but then it was followed by another.

And then another.

That was when the first spire started falling. People started shouting and pointing and that got his attention. It didn't make sense to Soli's eyes, things that tall… that big didn't sway like that; like thin trees during a storm or tall grasses in a breeze.

But it wasn't actually swaying, it was falling over, just slowly on account of its size. When it finally hit the ground there was a huge crash, drawn out like a peel of summer thunder echoing over the city and a huge cloud of dust went up. Then another of Deylos' spires started careening towards the ground and then people really started screaming. What had before been a gently milling and diffuse crowd of people in the park became instead a surge mass of people churning in every direction.

Soli's mother and father each grabbed a hand and started moving. They weren't screaming. He can remember looking up at them, glancing between his mother's long oval of a face frozen in a mask of stony silence and his father's hawkish features locked into a wide-eyed stare, and feeling his words lodged themselves in his throat like the knot of a tree root. Looking back it might have been better to stay where they were. But with the crowd wild about them there was no chance for that, it was either move or be crushed beneath the stampede. Soli locked between his parents as they maintained an irongripped lock on his hands and dragged him towards the eastern edge of the park. They made it in just a few minutes and there joined an ever greater flow of people.

Not just people coming out of the park but others going towards it from the surrounding blocks. Everyone moving just so they wouldn't be trampled underfoot by the people all around them.

Somehow throughout it all Soli didn't lose his grip on either his father or mother even as the great mass of people pushed and pulled them this way and that. By then the air was filled with a chorus of screams and shouts that joined together into a wordless barrage, behind which was a now constant refrain of booms echoing through the city.

Every few minutes he felt another spire fall by the tremors they set off. Glass cracked, stone planters tumbled over, loose brick was shaken free, and people fell never to rise again. Huge plumes of dust rose into the sky and colored Lythra's darker, drifting through the streets.

He remembered coughing for what seemed like forever in the alley between a tiny little furniture shop and a restaurant as his parents argued in quiet whispers about what to do next. They tried to keep their voices low enough that Soli couldn't hear but neither had been willing to let go of his hands so he heard it all. His father 'won' and they decided to start trying to circle around the park and head back towards home, where they would hopefully meet up with the others.

They'd only made it a block and a half through the press of people, winding this way and that as the flow of the crowd shifted when a shadow fell over them. Soli looked up and saw the impossible. Glinting light reflected off of windows twice as tall as he was sandwiched between beams of metal as thick around as three of him put together.

It was like looking up and seeing the ground rushing up to meet you.

And before he could process what exactly it meant he felt hands on his back shoving him forward and heard a wordless scream that opened up his chest, grabbed his heart, and squeezed it like a vice. Soli tumbled forward into his father's back and they both crumpled to the ground in a heap.

He had one last glimpse of his mother from that position, her green eyes shining and her mouth flung open as the warm skin of her face pulled taut and the coiled braid of brown hair on top of her head fell loose over the sharp points of her ears.

Then… nothing. She was swallowed by a cloud of dust and stone and shattered glass.

Of the long minutes that followed Soli mostly remembers feelings; his hand in his fathers tight grip, trying to cough out his lungs, and blinking to clear his eyes. Tears carving tracks down his cheeks through the caked layer of grime and dust as he struggled in the wake of his father's long stride. Emerging from dust clouded hell into the relief of Lythra's clear gaze.

He remembers hearing the screams and shouts of those running alongside them mutely, distantly, as if something thick and stuff was stuck in his ears. He remembers his lungs burning. Stumbling. A skinned knee. Then more running.

Soli remembers running for hours, days, years. Feeling as if he was a string stretched too tight across a chasm.

Then he felt a blast of hot wind at his back. Like after a long high-summer day when the winds have been still for too long and then a fresh breeze blows in, stirring up all that stagnant air into a wave of dry scorching heat. And with it a great roar like the crowd at a Pinpoint match when the home player scored a perfect bullseye.

He glanced behind himself, but instead of a rambunctious crowd he saw the street opening open like the maw of those monsters on the covers of Captain Thellere stories. People fell screaming into the jaws of the earth. Tongues of flame as big as trees licked up the sides of the gap. And it was growing.

Soli felt himself being lifted, his fathers long arms gripping him under his arms as he redoubled his pace. He remembered thinking that he hadn't been carried like that in years. All around them people ran and screamed, their faces twisted masks locked into perpetual terror, as the ground behind them continued to collapse in great chunks that dropped away with either groaning shrieks or utter silence. It had to end, at some point it had to end. But it did not, instead seeming to go on forever as Soli's father stumbled forward on aching legs.

Until he could not any more.

As the last of his frantic strength left him he heaved and threw Soli forward. Soli did not see his father fall, didn't even hear it, all he knew was that one moment he was being carried and then the next he was tumbling through the air towards the street below. His back was the first part of him to hit the ground and he skidded to a halt through rubble and dust just a second later. Bruiser and a little more scraped up, but whole.

Of his father he saw nothing. Only the gaping chasm stretching before him, still swallowing buildings and streets to either side but no longer creeping inexorably toward him.

How long he stayed there staring at the destruction Soli doesn't know, he also doesn't remember getting up and resuming his journey or when he made the decision to start running again or even the one never to turn around again. He isn't even sure how long it has been since that moment. Days, hours, minutes. They've all blended together.

It's hard to even remember what it was like to count time in anything but his own (dust choked) breaths and (bruised and aching) steps. There's more dust than air in his lungs it feels like sometimes. And a persistent split in his side like someone has reached in and started tugging on his organs. He doesn't even have a destination except away. The number of other people around him has steadily dropped since then, going from a scattered crowd to a sporadic trickle to the occasional glimpse across the street. Sometimes it's adults trudging along, dust caked and bloodied, and other times its kids his age and younger huddling alone in the shadow of a collapsed and ruined building that was once a home. He's seen people with crudely bandaged injuries and others so covered in dust it was hard to make them out against the ruins.

And sometimes they aren't even people anymore. Just bodies.

He stopped really seeing them a while ago and now Soli just runs on. Until he too can't anymore.

Something, a bit of brick again maybe or maybe a patch of wet… something, tripped him, sending him sprawling. Getting up was too much of an effort so instead Soli simply lay there in the dust as his tired and aching lungs struggled to suck in what air they could. Mostly they seemed to get dust.

Instantly his throat and mouth were coat in it and he could feel it settling into his chest.

He let out a wracking cough which rattled his ribs and bruised his throat. Then another. And another. Each one gusting more dust into the air in front of his face and making the problem worse.

On and on they went, until finally he could breath cleanly with great sucking breaths that pushed his chest painfully against the hard paved brick of the street below him. His whole chest was a single bruise and his throat felt like a raw wound. Every part of him was spent; his arms and legs felt limps useless at his side, his feet like another pair of bruises, and behind his eyes a drum beat against his skull.

Soli decided then that he might as well die. The world seemed to be ending anyways, so he might as well end with it.

And so, as his breathing slowed and the pain receded down to merely a constant dull ache, he simply lay there and waited. For how long he didn't know.

Long enough.

With the same gradual awareness of the Daughters' rise after dos'lya — that brief period between one Daughters setting below the horizon and the next's rise, when the world seemed half-asleep, cast all in long shadows and pale reflections of the Daughters' radiance — he became aware of a pair of feet by his head, then as his eyes drifted upward he saw two legs attached to them and then the rest of the body. It was a girl. Or so he saw her.

She was twenty and a university student who had so far survived the apparent apocalypse by virtue of being at first far from the center of the city where the worst of the devastation had been concentrated and then by moving from alley to alley with her friends. Soli knew none of that. All he saw was a girl untouched (physically) by the devastation around them, her short blond hair tumbling down around her cutely rounded ears to just tickle her shoulders. Dressed in a pale blue shirt and long green pants she looked like one of those paintings of Kiestre in the temple murals.

And behind her five others, two boys (one only a little taller than Soli himself, with a scowl that seemed permanently etched into his face alongside several studs going through the bridge of his nose and eyebrows and wearing clothes as dark as his mood, and the other a lanky enough he towered over most people in a crowd wearing a pair of rounded half spectacles that gave him a distinctly owlish look that was only reinforced by hsi rumpled clothes) and three girls (another blond, her hair falling in a long braid down her back while the shaved sides of her head reveal the arc of rings running down her ears to match the one in her lip, next the perfect picture of a farm girl — sunkissed skin and work worn hands — in her sundress if not for her unnatural red blade of hair and the scattering of tattoos running up her arms to disappear underneath the floral fabric of her dress, and at last a girl with a tress of midnight hair that cascaded down onto shoulders hunched underneath a jacket made to look like Ranger garb at least two sizes to big for her) all around the same age. Two of them were looking anxiously around, one each of the boys and girls, their eyes tracking the sky as if it might start falling on them even though there were no spires in the immediate area, just the usual ten to fifteen story buildings scattered amongst lower slung shops and homes of the area. All of them had the same drained expression, but they were all a far cry from the rest of the people Soli had seen about; lacking the despondent gazes and lifeless postures. Whatever they had seen it had not been the sheer death and destruction as further into the city. Somehow that made him feel… not hopeful exactly, but less hopeless.

If these people had survived his sisters and brother might have too. He wanted to see them again.

Even if their parents were- even if it was just the five of them they were still a family.

"Can you stand on your own?"

Her voice was low, sort of rumbly, though he couldn't tell if it was her normal voice or the result of something else.

There was no mistaking it for anything but a real person's voice, and with that his faint hope of everything having been some horrible nightmare disappeared. His scattered thoughts slowly came back around to the present moment as Soli took in his immediate surroundings; the shattered, scattered landscape of Deylos spread out around him like something from one of those old paintings about the Illumination. Only transposed onto a modern city of metal and stone and glass. Smoke, it looked too dark to be dust, rose in black columns to spread a haze across the clear blue sky.

If he strained Soli could just make out the distant shouts and screams of other people over the persistent booms that echoed across the city. Though most were distinctly different from the original ones, he could tell because those still came occasionally to shake loose whatever fragmentary shards of glass still stood in the windows.

Apparently taking his halting movements as an answer the girl stooped closer and put her arms beneath his shoulders, lifting with a single great heave. They stumbled together.

"I- I can't carry you, kid. You've got to stand or you'll…"

She didn't say what would happen.

He understood anyway, after all he'd been ready to accept it just a few moments before. Part of him still was ready to just lay down and die.

Not enough of him to do it, it turned out, as his legs finally caught underneath him and after another moment of shaky stumbling steadied against the uneven street.

"Good, good," she didn't let go all the way as she moved back towards her friends, leading him by the shoulder with a tug and pull.

The rest of them accepted him silently into their midst with little more than a nod as they, just as silently, moved back into the alley that they'd come from (he thought at least).

This group did not run with terror-born endurance, but rather slinked with the anxious gaits of the hunted and eyes cast towards the sky. Over the next hour or so they alternated between creeping through darkened alleys and sprinting across ruined streets picking their way further and further away from the Deylos' city center and closer and closer to its outskirts. He wondered if they were trying to get out of the city entirely. Soli had only been beyond the city once before, to visit his grandfather's estate when he was a few years younger.

Maybe it would be safer there. Without all the tall buildings to fall on them.

But then again, how would they feed themselves or find water to drink or even just stay dry if a storm rolled in? If they found a town maybe? One of the little outlying 'burbs that clung to Deylos' fringes like raindrops.

That was a long way away. Deylos might not be like the older cities (only just two centuries from its founding) of the Summerlands, which stretched from horizon to horizon and rose so high into the heavens that the taller spires shaded the shorter, but it was still a far cry from some dinky little frontier colony. Tens of thousands called it home. Tens of thousands more worked within it everyday, travelling in from those same outlying little towns everyday to the towers and spires at its center in enchanted cart-trains pulled along by spectral horses. There were, throughout its many kilometers of sprawl scattered compounds, clusters of towers and parks, belonging to the various combines and concerns that called Deylos home.

In fact one such compound seemed to be their immediate goal. Locate in one of the newer portions of the city towards the southeast that seemed to be relatively untouched by the devastation otherwise wrought on the city Soli could make out the distant forms of a number of middling towers. The sort that the big combines liked to use for office space. Big, blocky things that loomed over the surrounding streets with imposing power they looked eerily pristine from a distance.

Just beyond them he also glimpsed one of Deylos' grand temples. He didn't know to which Daughter in particular it was dedicated, though given its proximity to the compound he would bet it was Lythra. Combine adverts were always thanking Lythra and such.

Soli and his family prayed mostly to Kiestre and Kauvandra like most people did. Everyone gave some prayer to each of the Daughters of course. But unless you were a Ranger, glory and honor were pretty far from most people's lives and unless you were a mage developing spells or an artist, genius wasn't something most people needed much of. People needed justice all the time though, whether you were hoping for someone to catch the pickpocket who stole your coin purse or praying that all studying paid off on your next test, and mercy… well everyone made mistakes or got sick.

As the group approached closer and closer to the collection of towers, sneaking through quiet streets and dashing past shop windows hanging open like yawning mouths, complete with rows of glass teeth, the peeking shape of the temple disappeared though. In its place more and more of the ground level came into view. Between the towering edifice of stone and glass that stretched farther and farther above as they grew closer, smooth paved plazas stretched out underneath the clear light of Lythra. Lined by trees and bushes and even occasionally run through with trickling little false rivers they broke up the monotony of the compound.

Eerie did not begin to describe the deadly silence of their surroundings combined with faint and fading booms and the distant cries of the city, only a whisper on the wind howling overhead as they walked beneath the shadows of the towers at the edge of the compound. It was almost peaceful. A graveyard sort of peace.

Had it not been for the scattered signs of hasty flight Soli might have been able to fool himself into thinking everything was alright.

But everywhere he could see where people had left food lying about, or dropped papers and jackets and all other sorts of things. An enchanted door kept trying to close automatically on someone's dropped luggage.

As they crept slowly deeper into the cluster of towers the others of the group grew increasingly more anxious, craning their necks more and more towards the sky. Conversations had been sparse the whole time but not it ceased altogether. No more whispered conversations or low chuckles at some private joke.

Soli wondered what they were looking out for. He'd never been the most observant, his middle sister Euma always complained that he stole her pairs and triplets whenever they were paired together for Twos-and-Threes on family nights. No one else seemed as bothered to be paired up with him, but Soli didn't know if that was just because they weren't as competitive as Euma or if she was just making excuses for losing. Either way he didn't see what the others saw.

Then again, maybe they hadn't seen it yet either, he thought, just in time for the scowling boy to curse.

"Cieliel's puckered assh— "

His tattooed friend stopped him before he finished. Soli almost rolled his eyes; he was twelve, not six. He and his friends said worse. Out of earshot of their parents at least.

Or maybe it wasn't because of him, because all the others had suddenly tensed up and their eyes had swiveled across the skyline in the direction of scowly's gaze. He tried to see what had caught their attention but couldn't. It looked like any other patch of sky, hazy from the dust and smoking swirling through it but otherwise clear of anything except the towers.

Which were plenty interesting, sure, with their crystal prisms, wire-webbing, bronze discs, and all other manner of magey stuff. But none of that seemed to warrant cursing.

A second later it didn't matter how unobservant Soli was because he heard it; a long whispered roar in the distance that echoed back and forth between the canyons between the towers. Like the droning of thousands of insects it broke the eerie quiet into a million little pieces. Without discussion the group rushed for the nearest alleyway, sweeping Soli up into their middle and pushing him along with half a dozen different hands.

Quickly, with the suddenness of a spring rainshower, the buzzing grew into a dull roar that shook the windows in the towers and set the hairs on the back of Soli's necks on end.

Just as they reached the mouth of the alley he saw them, not that he knew that at first, a pair of black dots in the sky that grew from the sizes of birds to the size of an entire building storey in seconds. Dancing between the buildings with incredible grace the… things swept through the compound and circled around it once in the seconds it took for the group to crowd into the alley way. It was as if someone had scooped out balls of blackish-purple stone and strung them together into a sort of caterpillar before sticking spikes all over the underside like dozens of legs or arms.

Something like water or flames shot out from little slits in between the spikes and out of the back. And in certain parts he could see bits so black they hurt to look at for more than a moment.

They came to a stop at the tower one over and across the street from the alley Soli and the others were hiding in and just hovered there in the middle of the air. He'd read stories about ships that could do that, but he'd never seen anything like it before and Soli had never imagined that they would be so big. Each of them could have fit more than a dozen of the big passenger carts inside.

Barely a second later Soli was smushed up against the wall as the whole group tried to slink as deep into the shadows as it could even as they all craned their necks to see as much as possible.

A seam on the belly of each of the flying stone-caterpillar things opens and out drop dozens of little shapes. For a second he thinks they might be shedding parts of themselves like shutu birds in summer, but then the shapes unfold into figures, people figures. Each dressed in a shell just like the stone-caterpillars, with slightly fewer spikes.

They look almost like Rangers, dressed up in their green and silver armor to march in the Illumination parade every year. They didn't move like Rangers though, there was none of the swagger and cheer that the Rangers had, these black-shelled people prowled like the panthers in Deylos' zoo hungrily baring their teeth at the watching crowds. A shiver went through Soli. Each of them was carrying a funny little bow, like they'd taken the practice bows they handed out at school and stuck them to a wooden stake. Some had shortswords at their hips.

None had spears. Or proper bows.

They looked… he didn't want to say that they looked silly, but Soli didn't have a better way of describing them.

Like an actor from one of those silly skits the school used to be put on when they were kids all in black makeup and with ridiculous white hair pretending to be storybook monsters. Even when he was a kid dosrowi stories had never scared him. Not even when told by crinkly old priestesses of Cieliel visiting from Miithraith. Dead things just weren't scary.

Squeezed in between two of the group — the blond girl who'd helped him up and the jacket girl — Soli couldn't see much, just a thin slice of the world; pale white-grey pavement of the plaza glowing in Lythra's bright light, edged by splashed of green and brown. He did not see the black shelled people prowling out from their landing zone in ones and twos. And he did not see their hovering transports lift away to soar back into the sky.

That he merely heard as whatever drove them roared out greater and greater until they drifted far enough away that the distance swallowed it some.

Forming a loose and irregular circle the black shelled people began sweeping through the courtyard holding their stubby little bows like warding amulets before them, poking through bushes and trees and peering into windows. Not all of them. But most of them. Back where they'd first been dropped off a handful remained, their armor sleeker and fancier in ways that were too subtle to notice at a distance, huddling in a tight circle around something on the ground.

Slowly the expanding wave pressed closer and closer towards the group hiding in the alley. Though none gave an indication they'd notice them.

And just as slowly the group edged away from the mouth of the alley, trying to hide deeper and deeper in the shadows, but they did not turn and flee. Fear kept them tightly bound in place. Moving things were easier to notice, even in shadow. And people that ran got chased.

So, if they didn't run they wouldn't get chased. Hopefully.

But the not-rangers in their black armor, with their strange weapons, did not seem to be turning back. With every second they took another few steps forward. Two of them were within shouting distance of the alley, one looking at the lobby of the tower directly adjacent to them while the other scanned the plaza. At least three more were within shouting distance of those two.

Then, at some silent signal, without warning or any seeming sense they stopped. Retreating away from the group they began making their way deeper into the compound, roughly in the direction of the temple Soli had just barely glimpsed earlier. A sigh of relief went through the group.

They hadn't really gotten all that close and none of them had any reason to think they were anything other than some secret Ranger force (whatever their fears, the group Soli had fallen in with knew nothing more concrete than he did), but… still they were glad to pass by unnoticed. After a moment of waiting to see if anything else would happen another wave of relief passed through the group.

 

[CuttleFish2.0]

Chapter 2

They left behind the strange not-rangers in black and the compound in silence. Not the same tense, anxious silence that had hung over their journey before or the fearful, heart in the throat, hush of those few brief moments as they waited in shadow either, but something more lonely. Like the quiet of a graveyard. Creeping from the alley they picked their way across the street, splitting their attention between what was in front of them and what might be following.

No one dared look to the sky.

Half afraid that if they did they would see those impossibly graceful bulbous ships hovering above them.

It was silly. With the racket they caused and the wind they kicked up there was no chance of their sneaking up on them. But still it was not one that Soli could shake easily.

Gradually the group worked its way in a broad arc away and around the compound through crumbling sidestreets and shattered avenues strewn with the wreckage of the city. Though the damage was less than what he'd seen firsthand, this part of Deylos had still been hit by the same calamity that the rest of the city had, just a lesser form of it. Scattered patches of glass shards from blown out storefront windows littered the unsettled surface of the street between piles of rubble strewn about where columns or walls had fallen into each other were everywhere.

All the people though, even the sad and pitiful huddling in fear, were absent.

Or at least Soli never saw them.

While carefully picking their way across a plaza that had once been the centerpiece of a collection of theatre halls, galleries, and greenhouses the boy with the glasses spied several bodies in the distance by the collapsed remains of a tunnel. Using significant looks and nudges he chivyed the group in a more northern direction so that they came nowhere close to the corpses. There was also the suspicious stain spread out from the ruins of a schoolhouse they passed right before leaving that everyone refrained from commenting on or noticing while forming a living screen between it and Soli.

For the most part though the devastation they saw was material rather than corporeal.

Streets cracked — their paving stones upturned and cast about like pebbles — and sunshades tossed about, statues of local heroes toppled over, shattered windows, and the collapsed walls of buildings spilling out into the streets. But not the utter ruin and destruction. No streets here were buried under the weight of spires or unexpected yawning open into canyons belching smoke and flame and screams.

As they crept from one alleyway to another Soli spotted the silhouette of the temple he'd seen earlier, a grand arch set against the low outline of Deylos' outskirts. Lythra's fading light it was approaching dos'lya now, struck the temple's rainbow clad surface of its dome and set it glittering like a beacon against the slowly purpling sky. He wanted to pray though he didn't know what for.

That he would find his sisters? That this would all turn out to be some terrible nightmare? Or maybe he should just pray for his own safety? His own survival?

He wasn't even sure how. In the past he'd always just mumbled along with his mom or dad as they knelt for prayers; hands clasped in front of his face he would say 'thank you for... the good weather, for the rain, for his mom, for his dad, for his sisters' and on and on. Whatever he could think of.

The Daughters and their divine gifts had always seemed far from Soli's needs.

Lythra continued her descent through the heavens as the group slowly continued to wind its way through the city, and the shadows lengthened creeping fingers then into pools.

And behind them, her sister Kiestre would be rising from the east out of the depths of the dark Beyond to herald a new day and burn back the shadows with her clear light. It would be a couple hours yet. Kiestre would not even begin to crest over the horizon until well after Lythra had nearly slipped past it, that was where the dos'lya came from. Or so his teachers had told Soli.

Not that it wasn't easy enough to see with his own eyes.

But according to the priests of the temples it was meant to be a reminder of the power of the Daughters and their beneficence towards the people in driving away the cold and dark each day so that it did not take root in the world. Supposedly before the Daughters the Summerlands had been dark like the inside of a room with no windows and cold like the mountaintops or the inside of one of those spelled chillers. Beset by evil creatures — supposedly the dosrowi — from the bottom of the world which had wormed their way in from the Beyond to steal the shapes of people and torment them. That part he wasn't so sure about.

Darkness and cold without the Daughters? That made sense. But how was something supposed to tunnel through all the stone and dirt beneath his feet when it took all the most advanced magic and tools to go in the opposite direction nowadays, besides which they knew what was at the other end and it wasn't some twisted shadowy nightmare land of madness and black emptiness like the Beyond was supposed to be. It was just the Underdark.

Which was dark, but not empty. If anything it was the opposite. So full of stone, which was why it was dark. And what made it worth going to, for all the ores and minerals and crystals and even strange creatures that lived there.

Most of the combines dealt with the Underdark in some way. Whether they mined it directly or used the materials from it to make things.

And there were definitely no dosrowi in it. Not even people.

Just weird monsters that never saw the light of day.

This was where Soli's thoughts went as the group continued to slip farther and farther from the center of Deylos' center towards its outskirts. Buildings grew shorter and the damage… actually didn't become all that much less, though the center of the city seemed to have been hit the worst, all of Deylos had been affected by the disaster. In fact if anything the structures they were starting to pass seemed to be in worse condition.

Perhaps it was just the creeping shadows though, heightening damage that might have gone unnoticed otherwise. Some of the windows and doorways they passed seemed swallowed by them.

"Getting real dark," whispered the boy with glasses.

Despite his efforts his voice seemed to carry impossibly far, echoing down the empty street and off the silent walls all around them. With a start the whole group slammed to a stop, scanning all around them.

Soli flinched too, half from the unexpectedness of his voice and the reaction of the others.

After a long moment the others all turned to glare at their friend, who flushed and shrugged. It was hard to disagree with the statement, he'd never seen a dos'lya this dark before.

That seemed to break whatever spell for silence had fallen over the group and as they continued some quiet, hushed, conversations picked back up. Someone asking someone else how they were doing, vague assurances. There wasn't really much to say.

Soli didn't pay much attention. He didn't really know any of these people.

Still, it was nice to hear something other than silence and the muted whistle of the wind.

"I have still have that essay due for Professor Nathil," began the girl with the mohawk in the sundress to the girl in the ranger jacket as they squeezed through a narrow alley between a pair of clothes shops, before shaking her head, "Can you imagine, worrying about that now? With everything- well, like it is."

There was a beat of silence in which neither of the two girls said anything, then the dark-haired girl shrugged.

"What keeps going through my head is that I forgot to water my flowers this morning. That stupid blood lily Cieriel got me for the end of last term will have already started wilting."

Mohawk girl nodded back, though her gaze was trained ahead and her expression did not say that she had taken in a single word her friend had said.

Slowly the shadows kept lengthening and deepening. Throwing the city into a stark contrast as the last linger rays of Lythra's light retreated lower and lower, the sky cast in darker and darker shades of blue and purple. Soli kept looking into the shadows and expecting to see eyes peering out at him.

It was like those old stories. Every bit of darkness seemed a threat.

He wasn't the only one that was nervous about the weird lack of light either, because the rest of the group kept glancing behind them to the eastern horizon. Kiestre must just be below the horizon. She would crest any minute now.

But one minute passed, then two, then five.

Ten. They kept moving, crawling along as the world sank in a second form of nightmare around them. Fifteen minutes.

Finally, the boy with the piercings in his nose and eyebrows said the words, "Kiestre's not rising."

Behind them the eastern horizon remained stubbornly dark as Lythra continued her descent into the west, already nearly a quarter of the Daughter below it with more slipping past with every second. Above the sky shifted into a deeper and deeper blue. When Soli's eyes gazed into it, he almost imagined tiny little eyes staring back at him.

He shook his head and stared anywhere but up.

Hearing the words said out loud, though they'd all thought it at some point over the last few minutes, held a strange sort of finality. Like a window being closed shut on a breeze. As it they made it real.

The others looked back and forth between each other, no one else daring to speak for many long minutes. Then, the blond girl who'd first helped Soli up, said, "We should keep moving. It's not safe here."

Whether it was safe anywhere went unasked.

They started moving. Quietly again.

Shadows lengthened and deeper even further into black pools in the world. Before long Lythra had slipped below the horizon and only a thin little haze of light peeked over to cast weak, pale rays across Deylos' skyline — such as it was — and then that too was gone. In its place a black pall lay over the sky and Soli could not help shuddering as he walked through darkness.

Moving mostly by feel, the group continued on. Slowly. Even just keeping track of one another was difficult, an effort of discerning shifting shadows and barely discernible hints of color in the plaid dark that hung over everything, and brought them to a snail's pace. Keeping a hand to the walls they walked beside helped.

So did whispering. Though it was more making sounds which almost approached words with the least noise possible.

They walked for minutes. Or hours.

It was hard to tell without seeing one of the Daughters overhead. Not that Soli could do that normally — Captain Thellere did it all the time when he was invariably stranded by some shipwreck or ambush — but it was impossible to do without even that.

Gradually, over the tops of the buildings, there grew a glow in the seemingly perpetually darkness ahead of them. Not enough to really see by. Not at first.

It grew so slowly in fact that at first Soli thought he was imagining it entirely, but the others saw it too. As it brightened from an uncertain aura floating vaguely in a direction south and a little further west into a distinct haze burning faintly against the deep blue of the sky, perhaps four streets over, the others whispered to each other frantically.

Snappy little exchanges, full of sharp and hissing tones.

Eventually, inevitably, they decided to head in that direction.

There was a moment, as they continued on, that he had the wild notion that it was Lythra coming back; the sun reversing course in the heavens. It was what he would have expected if this were all a story being told by at temple; a daughter breaking the cycle of time and nature to save the people as darkness fell over the world.

Picking their way down alleys slowly they at last came to the street where the glow was, just two blocks down from this source.

As it turned out, the glow was people. Quite a lot of people actually.

Or rather the lights (opens fires on the ground and torches hanging off the walls) that the people were using to stave off the strange darkness that had fallen. Packed into an open air market pressed up against a thin strip of park, they looked... bruised and battered and bloodstained, as they huddled beside their tents and stared listlessly into the flickering flames or milled aimlessly between the rows upon rows upon rows of tents that had been crammed into the space. Soli saw young kids alone and families and old grandparents all squeezed up against each other without really acknowledging each other.

There was an empty stretch where the market and park both met the street and then another line of tents and fires and people, though these were more widely spaced and the people looked less injured and listless. Maybe that was just because they were covered head to toe in ranger armor. Not the shiny stuff they wore during parades, all polished silver and oiled leather.

And not the imitation of the jacket the girl wore either, but real armor.

It almost didn't even really look like leather, instead it looked almost like a piece of knitting, like someone had taken strips of leather and woven them together. There was something funny about the way they looked too, like each of the rangers had put on three or four extra shirts underneath. Though their dark-green hoods and cloaks almost hid it, Soli could see that each of them wore a small metal cap. Crystal lamps filled with orange-white flame lined overturned tables and torn off doors they'd used to make a crude wall at the edge of the camp.

Stopping when it was still too far for them to be spotted — they hoped — the group crouched in the shadows of a set of stairs leading up into what had once been either a library or maybe a museum of some kind, and watched. Each carried a bow, clutched in hand if they were standing watch and against their back if they weren't, but beyond that their weapons ran the gamut; spears, axes, shields, maces, and even a few swords. Their gazes swept fixedly across the darkness beyond the camp. Mouths fixed in frowns and grimaces, that only broke on the occasion that one or another whispered something to the rangers beside them.

Soli was surprised they hadn't been spotted yet.

Rangers went out into the wilds beyond even the frontier towns to hunt monsters and chart the world for the future, braving danger and uncertainty for glory and duty and faith. Or that was their motto. They went into the Underdark too, hunting worse things.

Crawling horrors and mad sorcerers. Depraved cults. That sort of thing.

A few years ago, when he was eight or so, Soli had been very insistent that he was going to be a ranger when he grew up. Thankfully he'd discovered the Adventures of Captain Thellere, which satisfied his need for thrilling adventures plenty these days.

Which had also taught him that being a ranger was dangerous. Someone always died in the first pages of a Captain Thellere story, usually pretty gruesomely too,to show that whatever the Captain was about to face was serious. And when it was an actual character, someone the Ranger Captain had met in some other story, well that was when you knew it was a serious story.

Maybe it was all made up like Ostra said. Soli still found them fun to read.

He didn't think any of these rangers were having fun.

They watched the camp for several long minutes. Just watched it.

Without a sun overhead it was hard to make out much, even with the light cast by their torches and crystal lamps. Also it was starting to get cold. Those fires looked very inviting. Especially when Soli spotted people cooking food over them, his stomach grumbled (luckily his wasn't the only one) loudly in response. And as they sat there smells wafted over, filling their noses with the scents of meat and oil and herbs It had been hours since Soli had eaten, since before he went to the park with his- since that morning.

There were so many people though. Dangerous things happened around other people.

But… they wouldn't have all gathered together if it wasn't safe, right?

Did the danger follow people? This camp must have been there for hours though, for all those tents to get set up and for the rangers to have built their wall.

Silently they all turned to one another and started a silent argument. It wasn't like anyone was exactly objecting to approaching the camp, the rangers were clearly protecting the camp, it had to be safe to approach. None of them were exactly enthusiastic though. Not after everything that had happened.

More than anything it was a process of who would take the lead. Several eyes, including Soli's, drifted to the girl wearing the fake-ranger jacket who shrank away and shook her head. There wasn't really a logic for it. They all just looked at each other for several long moments until finally the owly looking boy with the glasses and the blonde girl stepped forward together. With deliberate and anxious slowness they led the group out from behind the stairs and began creeping along the street towards the camp.

As they approached the edge of the camp's glow, where the street faded from indistinct blackness to a sort of muted greying expanse of colorlessness, they slowed even further. To a crawl.

Soli felt his heart beating against his chest as he kept one eye on the blonde girl's footsteps and another on the closest group of rangers.

She took one step into the light, then another. And another. She was four or five steps into the light before any of the rangers noticed them. They all reacted at once.

"Contact!" "Nock!"

"You! Stop right there!" "Don't-" "Stop moving!"

"Hold it!"

Spoiler: Authors Note

the first draft of this was much, much shorter (and originally only part of the whole second chapter), but it felt like this transition needed to be its own bit

 

[CuttleFish2.0]

Chapter 3

Soli stared at the point of metal pointed at him. Over and over he drew a line between the vicious tip and his heart as it beat, thundering in his ears, against his ribs so violently he was surprised he couldn't see them bending.

Around him he heard voices mixing with the shing! of drawing blades and the whistle of spears swinging through the air.

There was an eternity that stretched itself through him between heartbeats. His feet were frozen to the broken paving stones and his thoughts wrapped around the point of an arrow like the flickering light of fire and lamp glinting off its blade. If he'd had anything to drink in the last… however many hours, he might have wet himself.

After a moment Soli slowly came back to himself.

In the seconds — had it been seconds, and not minutes or hours? — between all the initial shouting and now, not a single one of the people in the group had taken more than a step back in movement. Shock and fear washed in equal measures across their faces as they stared back at the line of rangers drawn tight as their bowstrings behind the wall of overturned tables and doors. All of them stood still and silent, waiting.

Until finally the shorter of the two boys of the group gathered his courage and called out to the rangers, "We're just- " he stopped, uncertain. What were they just; kids? Scared? Looking for answers?

"We're unarmed..."

He held out his hands, palms, palms up, nodding for the others to do the same. Put a spear or bow in Soli's hands and he would have been more of a threat to himself than any one of those rangers. And he didn't think any of the others would have been much more of a danger to the soldiers before them.

But, the rangers disagreed obviously. They wouldn't be pointing arrows at them otherwise. He still couldn't quite manage to tear his eyes from the closest arrow, not even to see who was holding it. When he tried the glinting point dragged them back.

He couldn't help wondering what it would feel like. To be shot with an arrow. Would it hurt? Would he feel it at all? Or would it be like in the stories where the Captain's friends didn't even notice they'd been hit until it seemed like they were safe again.

Kids never died in the Captain Thellere stories. Not kids like Soli. Frontier villages kids, without names or personalities beyond hero worship, sure. And it was always tragedy.

But this wasn't a story and Soli knew he could die. Just like his mom. And dad. Probably his sisters and- no, he swallowed that though and tried to force his gaze up the shaft of the arrow.

Slowly, agonizingly, his eyes followed the arrowhead back thin shaft up past the fletching — black feathers, shining in the flickering light — to the hand holding the string of the bow — sun kissed, a shade or two darker than the girl in the sundress — and then up to the face behind the hand. He was surprised at how young the ranger looked, they probably weren't even as old as Ostra, and how naked the fear he saw in their eyes was. A twitch of the fingers and it would go flying. Soli watched the ranger's hand, white at the knuckle, grib the bow

And… a second later he watched it drop away, tracing an arc away from his heart and towards the ground. Soli watched as the ranger's face slackened, tiny crinkles around their eyes moothing out, and the lump of their throat bob slightly. Distantly he heard a voice grow clear.

" —about that. It- we're all a little on edge," a new ranger was saying, a fringe of auburn hair just peeking out from beneath the bottom of her helmet,"Especially with them out there still- doing, Lythra knows what."

Them? Did she- was she talking about the people in the black armor, Soli wondered.

While the other rangers had relaxed and started drifting back to whatever posts they had occupied before, they're eyes kept drifting in her direction before flickering away. She didn't seem to notice. Or at least was deliberately making an effort not to 'notice' if she had.

The taller boy in the group, the one with the glasses, frowned. His own thoughts running along the same lines

"Are you talking about those people in the black ships?"

For a second her expression and gaze sharpened, falling heavily on him before sweeping across the rest of the group. But only for a second, then she forcibly relaxed herself again and simply nodded.

After that Soli wouldn't have had the courage to ask anymore questions, or even open his mouth again. Of course he hadn't been to muster more than a hum or grunt in response to anything said to him in hours anyways, so maybe his own instincts weren't exactly a good measure. Whatever the truth, the other boy had seemingly no compunction.

"Do you know who they are?"

With a brittle grin that did not reach her eyes at all the ranger said, "Bad guys. But, don't worry about them, you'll be safe inside with the Company of Seven Claws standing guards," then, her gaze turning to the men and women beside her and her voice rising to reach out to all of those not, "Isn't that right!?"

As one, the rangers' voices rose to match hers. Soli noticed a flash of metal at her collar, a little silver leaf on its side.

"Catch 'em seven times! Bleed 'em seven times! We know what we're for!"

"Go on," she said to them as she smiled again and made the sign of Cieliel (Eldest Daughter, Patron of Glory), fist over her heart with the thumb out, and thrust her head to the side in the direction of the camp.

With that they were allowed in behind the barricade, a couple of rangers had been busy clearing a way in while they talked, and through the ranger's section into the camp beyond. Some of the group relaxed immediately on getting behind the wooden palisade, others took until they reached the rest of the camp. All except Soli. Being around so many people didn't make him feel safe, it did the opposite. His skin itched, like something crawled beneath its surface.

What could those rangers do if those big black ships came? Throw spears and shoot arrows at it? He doubted they would even scratch it. Maybe some of the Rangers knew a spell or two. But was it something powerful enough to break through the black metal of their shells and burn out whatever was inside?

He didn't think so. But… they would be so confident without reason, right? Two thousand years of keeping the Homelands safe from monsters and division and schismatics, helping to end the strife with the Temples, pacifying the Underdark, they knew what they were doing. Rangers had seen worse than this. Whatever or whoever those people were couldn't possibly win against the Rangers. Not once they got their feet under them and could fight back.

They just couldn't.

Leaving behind the rangers the group finally saw the camp proper; set in what had been an open air market place, what would have been full of crowds and stalls and the shouts of people buying and elling was still full of crowds, but of a different sort. Ragged, exhausted people in torn, bloodstained, and dirt caked clothes. They sat by flickering campfires overwhich nondescript stews bubbled. They walked, listlessly and without direction, between tents for all shapes and sizes and colors. Children, old men, young women, families, lonely beggars, the injured and the healthy, the camp was full of people of all sorts. It was impossible to glimpse the edges of the camp from within, all there was was the endless sea of faces and tents.

Moving single file the group crawled slowly deeper and deeper into the press of bodies. No one met their eyes or so much as acknowledged them. Though there was a constant noise it was not from interaction, it was just the sounds of people breathing all together (and talking in low, slow voices) to those they already knew. Sometimes through the ebb and flow of the crowd and the uneven terrain of the tents a gap would open up for a second through which Soli could see a glimpse of the market's edge and when it did he saw open doors leading into the adjoining buildings and within more people pressed, if anything, closer together.

Soli followed the group because what else was he going to do. Go off on his own and get lost? Whoever these people were, they were safe.

Part of him wanted his sisters (and, he added, his brother. Though the latter was so young he hardly counted) but even thinking about them brought him close to thinking about what had happened to him. That he was not ready to do.

When they finally stop, some minutes later, Soli finds they've reached a clearing of sorts in the crowd of tents and people. It wasn't the edge of the camp itself, that was still off a distance guarded by yet more rangers in another isolated camp like the one they'd come through. At least ahead and to the right. To the left and ahead were mostly buildings, low single story ones that would have been either warehouses or rented shops. There were figures walking along their roots carrying bows and spears. Off to the right hand of this section a series of taller warehouses took up much of the space and behind that was the park which had been entirely taken over by tents (and presumably more rangers guarding the flank). Another smaller camp of strangely dressed rangers had formed around the entrance of the warehouses.

Some scattered tents had built up along the edges of the clearing and there were people wandering around, some of them carrying baskets full of...stuff. Food and wood and cloth and all sorts of other things Soli couldn;'t make out. The group was brought up short by the sight. For several long seconds they just stood there dumbly staring out at the space in front of them, not saying anything.

"I guess we can set up here," said the girl who'd first helped Soli.

No one argued. But no one made any move to do anything either. None of them knew what to do. They looked around, searching for some sign or clue.

There'd been no instruction of guidance from anyone the entire time they'd walked through the camp. None of the wandering rangers or residents had so much as looked at them, much less taken the time to greet them and walk them through what they were supposed to do now.

That didn't look to be changing either.

Finally after another long few moments the boy with the piercings and the long black hair sighed and said, "Miriel, Kieran, you should go see if you can find a tent or something for us."

He pointed to Soli's rescuer and the other boy, who both nodded and after a moment of uncertain and helpless glancing around picked directions and started walking. She headed for the edge of the camp, where the entrances to the buildings were and he went back into the mess of tents behind them.

"Uh, I- I'll look for some food or something," said the other blond with all the piercings. Pierced boy or, as Soil had started thinking of him, 'leader,' nodded.

Which only left Soli himself, leader, and two of the other girls.

"We'll look for the best place to set up."

Leader said it like it made sense, like it was the logical thing to do.

One spot seemed as good as any other in the market to Soli. They'd get wet all the same if it rained and when Kiestre rose in a few hours (or maybe it would be Caithr, though he shudder to imagine the darkness lasting so long) there was little hope of staying out fo the sun. Only one spot would provide shade for more than a few minutes and that was already occupied by that small camp of strangely dressed rangers.

But the other girls were already nodding along with him and Soli didn't actually have a better idea of what to do and so he simply followed along as they wandered around.

All the markets Soli had been to were those covered ones, the ones that sometimes had two or three stories, with lots of water features and spaced out courtyards where you could sit down. This was nothing like those. Away from the crowd and up close he could see more clearly that it had been built like a big, long plaza butting up against warehouses and storefronts on three sides (except for connections to the street) and a strip of park on the last. Soli saw what might have been fountains, though small ones, scattered about. Empty. Dry.

There were also occasional stone posts sticking up, forming rough rectangles. About half his height, they had small holes in their center. The few overhangs that stuck out from the empty storefronts had already been snatched up by other groups. Not that they would give much cover anyways, even standing directly under them Soli didn't think they would stop anyone from getting wet in the rain.

He even caught a few glimpses inside the buildings bordering the market-plaza as they made their circuit around it and it didn't seem any better inside to Soli. Except that they would be dry if it rained. But then they'd also be crammed in with all the sad, lifeless people sitting inside. Also it stunk.

Just passing by Soli could smell it.

They passed close to the rangers for a little while and Soli eagerly took that opportunity to spy on them. He was less circumspect than he imagined. Though, it was not as if anyone else in the refugee camp had disguised their curiosity any better over the hours it had come to exist, so the rangers guarding it did not react or even particularly note Soli's examinations. Unlike the other rangers scattered around the rest of the camp, most of those within this one went about without any armor. Dressed in robes of bright turquoise or soft navy-blue or vibrant purple run through with long swooping, whirling, twisting, designs in glittering thread woven along the arms and backs there seemed to only be a few of them. Or maybe, many of them only occasionally coming out in small groups.

He only caught glimpses of them with their heads bent together whispering over little chalkboards or muttering to themselves as they paced, with their hoods up obscuring their heads and faces. Mostly they remained inside their tents or hidden within the warehouse. Appearing briefly before disappearing again.

At first he'd just assumed they were rangers because… well what else would they be? Now that he was looking at them more closely though he did see the same bits of leather armor peeking out from beneath their robes and one or two even had the same little metal leaves at their collars that the ranger lady out front had had. Soli assumed that had something to do with being in charge.

Clearly they were mages. Pretty important too from the way they were being guarded, and maybe even secret; like the Children of the Thorns that Captain Thellere worked with sometimes.They must be working on some sort of spell or ritual to bring down the black shell ships, or maybe enchanting weapons and armor for the other rangers.

While Soli contemplated the secrets of magic going on behind cloth and walls, Kieran and Miriel came back, having met up again after splitting up at first, with their arms full of bundles of fabric and rope. They'd just found the 'best' spot, as decided by Leader, a little ways down from the magic ranger camp along the southern facing wall of the warehouse structure. While the guards had given them some looks as they'd wandered by, they didn't stirr from their posts even after the other two returned and they started setting up. Or at least as much setting up as they could do.

Mostly it was clearing away what dirt and trash had accumulated in the area.

"It was just sitting in a big pile," frowned Miriel as she dropped her load on the ground in front of them. Kieran nodded and set down his own burden on top of hers.

"Some guards standin' over it all, glaring at everyone who came near. Don't think they were rangers."

Soli stared at the collection of fabric, some sort of thick stiff looking stuff the same dark green as the leaves and needles of the trees in the forest around grandfather's estate. He'd hated the place for the first few days.

Grandfather didn't have any good books, just ones about history and war; but not the fun sort where heroes stabbed monsters. And they'd been all alone except for his family (minus his younger brother at the time, who was still a couple years away) and the staff who were just as old as his grandfather and twice as boring because they didn't even have his grandfather's hunting stories to tell him. Not that those were much better, he always focused on the most boring parts of everything. Soli and his sisters had to invent all sorts of games to keep from dying of boredom.

One of them had involve- Soli cut that thought off behind a steel vault door and then threw it into the dark Beyond.

Everyone stared at the collection of fabric and rope laying on the ground.

"So," the other girl, who'd stayed with Soli and Leader, started, "How do we, uh, put it together?"

A beat.

"I- I don't know," admitted the dark haired boy.

He glanced back at the mass of tents back the way they'd come, looking maybe for some hint. After a moment he shrugged to himself and turned back.

"Let's uh, spread it out first."

So they did that.

Which left them with a large square of thick, scratchy dark green fabric and three coils of rope to stare at.

Thankfully in the midst of their staring at the collection of materials the last girl returned with three canteens slung over one shoulder and a cauldron stuffed with a small basket half-full of potatoes and wilting vegetables. She ignored the spread out cloth and set her spoils down by the wall.

Shaking out her arms she looked at the rest of the group, "This is all I could carry by myself but there's more; sausages and flour and wood for fires, so if we go..."

That was when she noticed them staring at the disassembled tent laid out on the ground and her voice trailed off for a moment. She looked between the other five of her friends and asked, "Is that supposed to be a tent?"

"Parts of it, yeah. We're trying to figure out how to set it up," said Leader.

"Oh."

He sighed and frowned at the uncooperative pile fo stuff for a few seconds longer before turning back to the others.

"Look why don't you — " he looked to the blond girl with the shaved sides of her head " — take Miriel and Duna and Ava go back and grab more stuff while we," he gestured between himself and the other boy, Kieran, and Soli, "Figure out… this."

All four girls exchanged a look that Soli had no idea how to interpret for a second and a hot little flush rose in Leader's cheeks for a moment, but they didn't object. Seconds later they were heading back in the direct the shaved-head girl had gone.

Truthfully Soli would have liked to go to get the food, but… even thinking about opening his mouth made his throat tighten down to a thin straw that made it painful to breathe for a second.So he let them go without comment.

What followed was several minutes of fruitless attempts to tie the ropes to some small wooden beams jutting out of the warehouse wall involving Soli climbing up on Kieran's shoulders and looping it through the convenient slats in said beams. Fruitless not because they didn't produce something that might, generously, have been called a tent, but because it would never fit all of them. Also because it would definitely collapse at the slightest breeze.

As they stepped back to admire the frustrating results of their work, Soli once again down solidly on his own two feet, a voice interrupted any coming disappointment.

"You need poles."

They turned and saw an older woman in a plain white robe that seemed at least a size or two too large for her with a frizzy mane of soot stained pale-blond hair pulled back into a long tail behind her thin swoopingly pointed ears by five battered bronze rings. Something about her didn't fit with the rest of the camp. Not her dress which felt about right for the rest of the camp, though the robe was recognizably white it was far from clean; patches of dirt and grass stains littered the hem while streaks of dried blood trailed up the arms. And though she had fewer bruises than many of the people, she had still clearly been through something in the previous hours and had the bumps to prove it. No, there was a sort of weight to her.

Everything seemed quieter around her. Like the air was weighted. She felt old. Not old like his grandfather, always complaining about how people were doing things 'these days' or wishing for how things had been when he was young. But more like… like the forest around his grandfather's estate, as if she had seen things.

"What?" asked Kieran dumbly.

"Poles. Wooden ones, to go into the sides of the canvas," she pointed at the sagging vee of fabric hanging desultory from the sloppily hung rope, "See where it loops at the edges? In those. Didn't you wonder why they were made like that?"

Soli hadn't. He'd been distracted by trying to slap together rope and fabric to make a tent. But now he did.

And so did the other two.

"Oh," breathed the dark haired boy with the piercings.

He stood stockstill for a moment staring at the 'tent' in front of them and then started laughing. Crouching low he buried his head in his hands.

"Daughters char my— we're such idiots."

"Nnn," the woman shook her head, "You're city boys."

To that the boy snorted and countered, "Everyone else figured it out," He flung his hand out towards the rest of the camp. Kieran frowned and shook his head as he came to stand beside his friend.

"Everyone else got here when there was light."

"Maybe," he said, then to the woman, "Where do we get these poles?"

She raised one of her finely sculpted eyebrows at him, "Same place you claimed the canvas and the rope."

"Right, figures. We'll wait for the others to get back and you and me— " he nodded to Kieran " —can go and get them," then he looked at the woman again, "Thanks for your help. Some of our friends are getting food, if you want to join us for a meal?"

Glancing over her shoulder at the camp the woman hesitated for a moment. She probably had things she needed to get back to doing. Or maybe just a family somewhere back in there, people she needed to get back to.

Soli swallowed against the lump in his throat and blinked back the sting in his eyes. Something itched against his chest. Again the vault and the tumble into the dark Beyond.

"Not that- you don't have to. We totally understand— "

She turned quickly back around, her hair swinging at the sudden movement.

"No, no. I- everything that- I was just," she cut herself off and mustered a weak smile, "I would love to join you all. My name is Au'Liestra, but you can call me Lise."

"Right, I'm Dax- I mean, Anad'du'raxiel, that— " he pointed to the other boy, who gave a shy wave " —is Kieran and the kid is, um… actually we don't know his name."

The dark haired boy, Dax, frowned at Soli. Not angrily, or like he was upset, but as if he was seeing something familiar for the first time in a long while and not quite recognizing it. Soli opened his mouth.

Maybe to give his name or just to say hi. Nothing came out. Still the words died in his throat as if bore down on them like a hungry dog after a meal. He sighed and smiled tightly at the woman.

Dax opened his own mouth, his brow scrunching hard over his frown, but he could not find the right words and so he sighed and shrugged, looking at Soli contemplatively.

"We have to call you something, can't just go running around saying 'boy' over and over, now that it's safe to talk," he paused, "Safer. How about Delyn?"

It wasn't his name. But it wasn't a bad one either, so he shrugged.

What did it matter what they called him anyways. They might as well call him 'Boy' or 'Kid.' But apparently it mattered to Dax, because he was shaking his head even before Soli had responded.

"Nah. Haldin? Ferion?"

He discarded each name as quickly as he chose them.

"Adun?" offered Kieran, then, "Etholas? Logir?"

None seemed to satisfy, as Dax and Kieran both shook their heads in unison. They began to go back and forth in turn, paying more attention to each other's reactions than to Soli's, with the taller boy going first.

"How about Lindon… or, Estir? You know, from tun-Bar Thalaharn's play; the one about the orphans?"

Lise watched their exchange with her brow raised in amusement as she moved to stand beside Soli himself, though not so close that he got nervous. Just close enough that it felt like they were almost standing together watching the two play off one another.

"Bit morose don't you think?"

Kieran shrugged, "Morose feels a bit right, with… you know things," he flung his hand into the air and swung it wide

"Legomir, maybe," but then Dax looked at Soli and shook his head yet again, "No. Feels like it should be shorter. Quicker. Snappy."

"What has to be snappy?" Miriel asked as she and the other three girls strode over.

Arms laden with even more baskets full of food and wood for the fire. Two of them, the blond that wasn't Miriel and the dark haired girl with the jacket, looked at the slowly collapsing disaster of a 'tent' with concern but kept quiet for the moment. Soli saw mushrooms and onions and jerky and sausage in the baskets. His mouth immediately started watering.

"Name for the kid... and don't worry about that," he gestured to the 'tent,' "We need poles apparently."

"Oh. Meni."

Dax blinked and Miriel thrust her chin at Soli.

"For his name."

There was a beat and then all five of them looked to Soli, eyebrows raised. He shrugged. Again, it wasn't his name, but it would work as well as anything else.

With that the other blond girl stepped forward and fixed Lise with a steely gaze, "And, you are?"

Kieran jumped in, "Right, everyone this is Lise. She's joining us for dinner."

Bouncing up from where she'd been settling down her pair of baskets, the red haired girl in the sundressed bounded over to Lise and thrust out her hand, "Hi, Lise! I'm Duna." While behind her the other three looked between Lise and Kieran and Dax, raising their eyebrows in unison.

The taller boy simply shrugged and answered their questioning looks with one of his own. Dax colored faintly. After a long moment the two girls finally relented, sighing and turning to Lise, who had been ignoring the exchange and greeting Duna, with strained expressions.

"Avu'llya."

That was the girl with the jacket, her arms crossed self-consciously for a moment before she forcibly relaxed them to her side.

Miriel stuck out her hand, "Miriel. A pleasure."

"Caria," said the last girl, the blond with the shaved head and the impressive number of earrings, and following her friend's lead held out her own hand. Stiffly though.

After that Kieran and Avu'llya went off together to get the aforementioned poles for the tent while the rest of them went about setting up the fire. Or at least tried to.

None of them knew how to start a fire.

It took only a few minutes of Dunal and Miriel fumbling around blindly with the wood for Liseto to snort loudly and step in, "Here," she held out a hand for the firestarter in the former's own.

Kneeling down beside the red haired girl, the older woman simply waited out Duna's subsequent pout. Relenting after only a few moments. Lise took the loop of metal at the same time as she reached over her lap and into the small metal box beside her to pull out a piece of sooty, black something. It was almost cloth-like.

"Unless you know a spell, start with some kindling. Kits like this come with char cloth, but dry grasses and twigs and all that will work if you out in the wilds," again reaching over her audience Lise dug around in the basket and pulled out some straw and sticks from the bottom.

Arranging it into a small mound, she continued, "It'll just take longer— "

Soli had just thought that was like padding. A thought shared by the others given their startled looks.

" —then you take a bit of char cloth," she tore off a piece, laying it next to the mound, before reaching back into the small tin and pulling out a little black rock, "And use your flint and steel to light it."

With the metal loop held close to the mound she raised the rock over and brought it down quickly, striking them together. A tiny shower of sparks showered down over the grass and cloth. Most of the group, Soli included, squawked in surprise.

"Sometimes," Lise said, striking the metal again, "It can take," again, more sparks, "A few tries-"

Finally a few landed directly on the char cloth and caught, burning slowly out in a glowing irregular ring, turning the black of the cloth gray-white slowly. It went out after a moment. Duna's shoulder sagged.

But Lise leant down and blew gently on the patches of ashy gray and they flared momentarily into orange-white brightness. Carefully pushing the char cloth into the grass and sticks, Lise kept on blowing and soon enough there were tiny little curls of white-gray smoke curling out from the mound. After a few seconds actual wisps of flame poked through the debris. Lise prodded at the blackening bits of kindling, revealing unburnt portions underneath to the growing flames, before she started laying some of the larger sticks from the bottom of the basket overtop. All the while continuing to blow occasionally, causing the flames to flicker and jump, until it had grown into an actual (small) fire.
"There you go. Fire."

Everyone stared at it for several long seconds, taking in the licking flames and the warm glow.

"And when do we- when should we add the logs?" asked Dax.

Lise added a few more sticks on top and shrugged, "Once you're sure the smaller stuff is burning good and well. Just be sure not to smother the fire."

Lise and Duna continued to build up the fire. Meanwhile the rest of them started preparing food under Miriel's watchful eyes, tearing up vegetables and throwing it into the pot with some of the water from the canteens. A little bit later Kieran and Avu'llya came back with the poles and Lise started helping them figure out how to set up the tent. Soli helped.

They worked slowly; watching the pot boil and joining in the brief, occasional spot of conversations that sprang up. Mostly involving asking Lise questions about innocuous subjects; What the tent fabric was called (canvas), if the fire was burning alright, did she think the soup/stew needed more salt or maybe more meat or potatoes?

Nothing that invited deeper conversation. Or that ranged too close to acknowledging that Lystra had set hours ago and Kiestre still had not risen or that the rangers looked scared and that no one was sure they would live to see tomorrow. It was stilted, but it filled the silence.

Soli found the soup bland when it was done. He ate it ravenously of course. But as he scooped out the chunks of meat and potatoes, and slurped down the broth he found himself longing for home all the harder. The warmth of his fathers arms and his mothers smile. Ostra's quiet musings on whatever she was learning and Euma's grumbling about not being allowed to go to whatever party was going on next weekend or Idith's exciting chattering about her friends. Even Timik's nonsense babbling. He missed it all.

He swallowed down those thoughts and shoved them behind another vault in his head. But he didn't send it tumbling over in the metaphorical dark Beyond. He didn't know what happened next. If the black shell people—

Suddenly the air was split by a wailing roar that shook their half assembled tents and wrenched everyone's attention into the sky. Which remained black and silent as it had been for hours.

A second went by. Two. Then a third.

There was a funny whistle in the air.

From across the camp Soli heard shouts and cries go up, and felt more than heard a huge surge of people moving all at once through the dense press of tents. Lise was on her feet, staring back into the crowd of tents intently. So were the others.

Something bright shot out of the darkness, a tiny little ember, and fell to land in the midst of the camp. Half a second later there was a loud whump and the spot where the ember had landed exploded into a roiling ball of fire and scattered burning scraps of canvas and wood and… other things in all directions. Dirt and smoke filled the air. And a rush of hot stinking wind rolled over them. Soli blinked up at the group from where he'd fallen.

More people were screaming and running. Pushing their way past and through and over tents and people as the crowd pushed in every direction simultaneously. Many of them heading straight for the back of the camp (and thus them).

But a second later, after another loud whump had lit up the rear of the camp in a burning cloud of dirt and debris, the part of the crowd heading their way broke up into a dozen smaller waves. Figures danced in the cloud; rangers cried out in agony as flames licked at them. But Soli hardly had time to take in the horror as another explosion lit up the camp behind him and sent the crowd into even further panic as they tried desperately to get into the surrounding buildings.

"Run!" yelled Lise and Miriel and Duna all at once, though none of them said where to run too.

Not that it mattered, in an instant their group was caught up in the pell mell of the crowd, their fire trampled underfoot, pot overturned, and the remnants of their meal dashed to the ground with a clang. Soli managed to stay close to someone familiar for a few seconds. But the crowd was too dense and chaotic, the press of people too panicked, and he was carried quickly away.

He thought he glimpsed either Miriel or Caria through a break in the crowd but it closed almost as soon as it appeared. It was as he was casting around desperately for any sign of a familiar face that Soli saw them, the people in the black shells, dropping down from the rooftops (hadn't there been rangers up there? Where were they?) all around the camp, wielding spears with gleaming points or swords with sweeping serrated edges. People screamed, angry, pained cries and he smelled a hot tangy something in the wind.

Then Lise was beside him, pulling on his arm, shouting, "This way!"

Towards the warehouse, towards the camp of strange magicky Rangers. Through the crowd he saw some of them shove their way out from behind their guards and the tents of their camp, hands full of fire and lightning and the cold light of death.

With a crackle and a flash something hot and wet peppered his back. He almost turned back but Lise kept pulling and Soli's legs pumped, keeping pace with her.

Something whipped past his head with a whistle and Lise grunted, her steps faltering for a second, but she pushed him on.

Now the strange Ranger's guards were pulling down their tents and the other doors of the warehouse opening, letting out more rangers with spells on their hands and lips to toss at the black shell people, who were still dropping over the lips of the buildings. And beyond the rangers, inside the warehouse, Soli saw… he didn't really know what; a dark empty space littered with empty arches of metal. Like doorways. Except they weren't empty but filled with glass- no water.

Not, not water.

A field. A forest. A river.

Clear blue skies, wispy clouds drifting along lazily and songbirds flitting through the air. Rangers in heavy armor — like out of the stories of the Integration, when elf fought elf to bring the light of the Daughters to all the Summerlands — yelled at them from the warehouse entrances, waving their hands even as they hefted fearsome spears and nocked arrows to enormous bows.

"Go! Go! For the gates!"

Lise shoved him ahead of her, past the line of mages. Soli stumbled but caught himself and got his feet under him. He picked one of the doorways, one that looked calm and friendly and safe (sunlight peeked through the trees of a forest of pale trees, their bark; black dappled on white) and pumped his legs as hard as he could for it. Soli glanced to his left, out of one door of the warehouse, he saw a trio of rangers locked in combat with twice that of the people in black shells. Blood running down their sides.

The ground shook and a whole wall of the warehouse ripped open in a shower of shattered stone and splintered wood. He looked over his shoulder and saw Lise standing beside the mages at the front, surrounded by the glow of a clear, dry spring day.

" —andra! Set your eyes to me! Heed my prayers! Make of me— "

And then she was swallowed up by a void of pure black, darker even than the sky outside, that grew and grew and grew until it had eaten the whole front of the warehouse and left nothing but itself.

Soli was just opening his mouth to shout… something, when he felt a cool pressure engulf his arm and a tugging drag him backwards. Then he was falling back, back, back, but instead of meeting hard dirt he just kept falling into nothingness and the world shrank down into first a pinprick of light and sound and then into nothingness.

Spoiler: Author's Note

And now you see why the previous part had to be split off. Now the story gets going, not that it hasn't been going already, but well... I've been thinking of this as sort of an extended prologue-y bit where things are still a bit familiar for poor Soli before even that little bit disappears.

 

[CuttleFish2.0]

Chapter 4

"Ugh!"

Nose wrinkling at the sudden whiff of wet dog Ash stumbled back from the second cloud of smoke and light to go off in her face in the last ten seconds. Coughing and squeezing her eyes shut she bounced off the alley wall and swore silently.

Crazy fuckin' scaley, setting off bombs in people's faces, she thought.

Blinking clear the sudden tears from her eyes as her throat spasmed in a series of harsh coughs, Ash lunged out in one last desperate attempt to grab the expensive looking bag slung over the lizard girl's shoulder. And came up empty. Grabbing hold of the brick wall to steady herself Ash reached up to rub at her eyes.

She heard Peter and Urven charging up the alley behind her, just late enough to be useless as usual. The rich thraik was gone from the alley.

When Urven had spotted her at the western gate — new territory for them after half of Thorin's crew had gotten pinched by recruiters for the army just days ago and been forced to abandon the patch — she'd seemed a perfect mark; some merchant's kid showing off mommy or daddy's money on her first solo outing. No guards, no weapons. Not even a walking stick. Walking around in fancy clothes with that fancy bag at her side. If even one of its many pouches had been full of coins they could have eaten off it for at least two weeks. Four if they managed to sell the bag itself.

Fancy leather working like that must have come from some fancy shop from Southlanding. Maybe even High Coast itself.

"What happened?"

Peter's voice, like the boy himself, was an irritating thin squeak of a thing

"Some kind of bomb," though now that she said it outloud, Ash doubted.

Even the tiniest fireworks they sold on Republic Day ten to the copper took longer to go off. And were usually louder to boot.

There hadn't even been a sound with this one. Not to mention the weird feeling the second bomb had given her right before it had gone off, like she'd eaten something bad days ago and it was only now hitting her. Tugging on her gut like a slick cord wedged right up against her bladder.

Urven cut in, "She was heading for Mills' Quarter, if we dash for it we maybe can cut her off before 8th."

"That's the Twin's territory. Maybe if we— "

"Forget it," she said, just to stop them both, "Not worth it. We'll head back to Market and stick to the crowds."

It would mean more competition from the rest of the crew, but it would also be easier pickings. The trick was to go for the people who were already light on their coin purses, less likely to notice it dropping free of their belt that way.

Urven frowned, the whiskers on his face that he laughably called a beard twitching as he huffed.

Originally it had been his idea to try moving to the side streets to try and catch folk trying to escape the crowds, but after a week and a truly pitiful haul to show for it (one silver thar, twelve copper thols, a ruined belt, and a copper bracelet set with some bits of polished colored glass) Ash was more than ready to go back to more familiar hunting grounds. They'd spent five of thols just on food the last three days. Once they gave a share to the rest of the crew they might have six coppers to spend between the three of them.

Not the worst run of luck she'd ever had, but not worth it for all the extra work. Crowds where people were bumping into one another made it easy to go unnoticed cutting a light purse free. A busy street though? Not so much.

Lots of extra running involved. It wasn't exactly hard to slip a soft merchant, but the rich pricks loved their money something fierce and without the press of the crowd they could still follow you for a good bit.

"Alright," the dwarven boy grumbled at last.

He wasn't really a boy—

Urven was actually a little older than Ash and she was sixteen. Maybe seventeen, or fifteen.

She'd been ten the same year Thorin had rolled into town and started up his crew, which she was pretty sure was six years ago. But it was hard to tell on the streets.

—but Ash still thought of him as one anyways. It annoyed him. Especially when she reminded him that his beard was still coming in patchy on his right cheek.

Peter just shrugged and followed after her as Ash started leading them back the way they'd come. Southgate's twisted side streets and chopped up little courtyards were a gods-send to the street kids like Ash; the way the building all bumped up against each other, the way the streets had been layered over one another. It meant there was always a back way to get anywhere.

Plenty of good ambush spots too.

Of course that almost meant more approaches to cover, but that was what having a crew was for. If it hadn't been for hers (not that it was hers mind you) Ash probably would have starved years and years ago when her parents died from the red plague. In her dreams (nightmares) she still sometimes saw the blood. She didn't even remember how she'd fallen in with her crew first.

It hardly mattered.

Stalking through shadowed alleys, cutting across cramped yards strung with drying clothes (out of easy reach of course, not that ash or Peter or Urven couldn't have shimmied up a drainpipe and cut one end of the string to get a hold of them if they'd wanted), and wriggling through dank crawl spaces they made their way back towards Market Street. More specifically a certain abandoned tavern, which had long since been cut off by new construction just a bit off from Market itself. Just one of the hundreds of little spots scattered across the city which had fallen victim to the chaotic nature of Southgate's expansion over the years.

Places perfect for all the riffraff of the city.

There'd been some talk of moving into Thorin's crews' old hideout when they took over the western gate, but it was way too big for just the eight of them. Right now the Clubhouse was plenty. Even if it was a bit of a walk to get to the gatehouse in the morning.

Working her way to the second story by wedging herself between two buildings, Ash twisted and contorted herself until she managed to get her hand up onto the roof and lever herself out onto it's steep slope. From there she dropped down the length of rope they'd attached to one of the chimneys so that Peter and Urven could make their own way up.

Coming in from the south was easier, all you had to do was squeeze under a wall with a low drainage ditch, but Sair had spotted some Yellow Caps hanging around that area the last few days so everyone was coming in the more difficult ways. Technically they couldn't do anything to them, but sometimes the older Yellow Caps liked to show the new recruits the ropes by wailing on this street crew or that. Strut their stuff.

If they were coming around looking for targets of opportunity, the trick was to not be there. Eventually they'd give it up. Go looking for someone else.

Reaching out a hand, Ash helped Peter up onto the roof and then they both pulled Urven up. Peter had what little remained of their loot while Urven was carrying the half a dozen loaves of stale bread they'd bought from a baker on the way back.

Luckily getting into the hideout itself was much easier, most of the buildings butted right up against it, though a bit of the south side had a gap big enough that some grass had grown in which they used to collect rainwater. But otherwise all you had to do was walk over to an edge, hang yourself off the roof and drop down onto the roof of the Clubhouse itself. Careful not to land on one of the weak bits and fall through, of course.

Peter had almost broken his foot a couple months ago catching himself in the wrong spot. Left a hole they could see the stars through at night before they scrounged up enough wood to patch it. It still leaked when it rained.

This time, no one did any damage. And after slipping in through the hatch Ash called out, "We're back!"

None of the others, it turned out, were around at the time.

The other five came back around noon; first Biter and Risca over the north roofs pushing and shoving each other like a pair of overgrown children, then Sair and Colm and Thom over the western wall more calmly, Sair clutching their haul tightly in hand. Five thars between them, and a fancy pocket watch to boot.

Once it was clear they'd given up on the scheme for the moment they gave the three of them plenty of ribbing. Mostly Urven, as it had been his idea in the first place, but Ash and Peter both got their fair share for going along with how long they did.

"Peter, I have a great new idea," Risca grinned, her scaled snout pulling back to show the uneven rows of her pointy teeth, and leaned into his face, "I just need your share for the next… oh about a month should do it."

Rolling his eyes he shoved her gently. Risca was thraikon (Ash, Peter, and Thom were the only humans in the crew), and she thus easily the heaviest of all of them, which came in handy when others tried to muscle them, so when she stumbled back it was only because she let herself. Her laughter only confirmed it.

Even at only seventeen she was almost two meters tall. And if you counted her tail, which Risca did, she definitely was.

Ash grinned from her seat at the big table in the middle of what had once been the tavern's upper balcony. It wasn't family exactly, not like the dim memories of her younger years, but it was good to have people who would look out for you. Who would give you shit when you deserved it and take it from others in your place when you didn't.

"Do you think if Colm goes naked— "

"Hey!" shouted the dwarf in question indignantly from the floor below, looking up from the pocket watch sitting open in his lap to glare at Risca, "Don't rope me into this."

She ignored him.

" —in front of the Mayor next time he needs to give some speech, I could steal his cane? Now that'd sell for a pretty penny… or maybe I should keep it? Lady Risca has a nice ring to it; do they call mayors 'lady?' "

Colm shook his head and went back to his investigation, while Ash and the others laughed.

Across the table Peter scoffed.

"That's not how that works."

"Sure it is," countered Risca, "Every mayor I've ever seen ahd the cane, so cane makes the mayor."

"Logical," snorted Thom as he chewed at a bit of stale bread soaked in water.

"No, it's not. Mayors get voted on."

Risca hummed and flopped down next to Biter onto a pile of old cushions, most of which had been salvaged from an abandoned mansion near the eastern edge of town they'd raided a couple years back. He kicked at her gently while he scratched at the stubble shading his square jaw. Whenever he got a bit of extra cash he went for a shave but it had been a few days.

Urven always grumbled he was shaming his ancestry, but as it was Biter who'd actually been raised in a dwarven household Ash thought he was probably just jealous.

"You sure about that?"

Peter nodded, "Saw it a couple years back. When they cleared out the big central market I camped out in Old Urdin's attic, watched the whole thing. Took hours. All those rich folk milling about, wish we could have— "

Ash was distracted from Peter's recounting by Sair settling down into the seat next to her.

"It was a good idea. Just bad luck."

"Mmm, I know," she said.

It really was, was the thing. Urven was smart. And if he'd been born rich that probably would have counted for something, but luck meant more for people like them than smarts.

Dumb and strong and willing to hrut people could take you a ways on the streets. Smart just as often made you a target for whoever was in charge.

"We'll try again, in a couple weeks… maybe head to the south instead of north. Right 'round Breyers street, or maybe Corrum. Now that the Yellow Caps had dealt with Piln's gang people might be feeling safer, less cautious."

Sair nodded and pursed her lips. There was something on her mind, Ash could practically hear the gears in her head ticking, working out the words that wouldn't irritate her.

At last, she said, "Heard you had a scare."

Oh gods. This.

Sair could be a real mother hen sometimes. It was sweet when it was happening to someone else, annoying otherwise.

" 'm fine. Rich thraik girl had some good kit. Got shook up, not scratched."

"Okay."

Ash did a double take, but Sair was already getting up and starting to walk off. That had been easier than she'd imagined at the start.

Easy things made Ash nervous because it usually meant you were walking into something you didn't understand and that was dangerous to do. But what exactly was Sair going to do, fuss over her later? It wasn't like she could be sick without any of them noticing, they lived in an old tavern that was half falling apart, most of the time they were ass to crotch.

She must've just decided to let it go this time. That was good. It meant Ash could forget about it too.

But later, when they were settling in for the night, Ash found herself staring at the bottom of the first floor running the incident over and over in her head, trying to figure out how that girl had caught her out. Maybe she had the bombs hidden up her sleeves? They were roomy enough for it. No, she'd distinctly remembered watching the girl's hands cause she'd been making weird gestures when they spotted her.

Little twitches of her fingers, spasms in her arms, like she expected to grab someone who wasn't there.

And that feeling...

Sort of like feeling a little sick, but also not bad exactly. A little bit like when you made a sloppy cut on the lift but still got away with their purse; good but not good enough. Everytime her memories went back to that moment she felt it again, like an echo in her head, and beyond it something else. Like a hum under her fingernails or a word on the tip of her tongue or a voice whispering just out of earshot.

Ash spent several minutes listening to Urven and Sair snoring softly as she turned over the memory in her head trying to tease out why she couldn't let it go. Eventually, restlessly, she drifted off to sleep and dreamed of a single perfect, endless moment that looped back on itself.

Spoiler: Author's Note

We take a brief break to visit another character. While the main bulk of this arc of the story will continue following Soli, it'll take fairly frequent breaks to visit a few other characters. Ash is the first.

 

[CuttleFish2.0]

Chapter 5

Someone was whistling very loudly in Soli's ears.

Or screaming.

A cold pressure surrounded him, like an enormous frozen hand gripping him and squeezing,, the chill biting through his skin to chill the marrow in his bones, tugging Soli about by his limbs and clothes until he was tumbling about in a pinwheeling spiral. He heard nothing but that screaming, sky-shattering, whistle hammering at his eardrums. All around him was nothing but blackness that reverberated with the beating of his own heart and the rasp of his breath.

He tried prying open his eyes, but could not against the force pressing in all around him. It felt as if he was falling away in every direction at once and also standing perfectly still. Stretched out to all the horizons while being pressed flat into the dirt. Soli wanted to scream, but could not.

Then, all at once, the pressure was gone with an echoing pop that rattled his teeth and made his ears ache. Barely a second later the darkness behind his eyelids flared into a blackish-red, the color of old slaughterhouse tile, before flashing back to black as it reached out to slap Soli across his whole front.

With a gasp that sucked in a mouthful of dust and dirt and rocks Soli managed to open his eyes and immediately started coughing out everything he'd just inhaled. Blinking steadily he snapped his head up and out of the baked earth, trying to clear the stars out of his vision, but was forced to tuck his head back down against the blindingly harsh glare of the Daughter above. Soli slowly moved his aching arms around to shield his eyes from the Daughter in the sky (so long as the end of the world hadn't thrown things off, it should be Kiestre) and then lay there, curled in the dirt, for several long minutes.

Every part of him shook and shivered, though the air was warm against his skin. It wasn't pain, exactly, but it was close. Like an aching beneath not just his skin and muscles but his very bones. He felt almost feverish.

It passed at last and Soli was able to turn his eyes up again and clearly take in the terrain around him. He lay in shallow depression in an otherwise flat and empty patch of dirt. A few struggling scrubs and tufts of browning grass baked underneath the intensity of Kiestre's glare. There was nothing else between him and the idyll blue sky above sketched through with wispy little perfect white clouds.

No sign of where he came from.

Those doorways must have been some sort of magic portal, but apparently they'd only been one way. Was he just the first person to make it through or had something gone wrong? Maybe the portal had been damaged after he'd gone through, or before… maybe it was Soli who was in the wrong place. Rangers would have someplace prepared to send people, right?

Well, this place didn't look prepared.

Climbing slowly too his feet Soli tried to see anything that looked like a clue, some sign of where he was and where he should be going but all he saw was dirt and rocks and grass and—

Oh.

He wasn't just on some random patch of bare dirt in the middle of nowhere, He was standing on a cliff. No. That wasn't the right word. It was all cliff all around him.

Like a mountain that got its top chopped off. A plateau.

Something in his gut churned. Slowly he started edging towards the lip of the cliff, hoping maybe he'd see people down below and maybe even an easy way down. Or just that it wasn't very tall. Soli had never been a great climber.

But it was just a sheer drop like the edge of a knife and endless green below, a sea of trees that stretched from horizon to horizon. And not the carefully manicured trees of Deylos' parks or even the ancient towering pines around his grandfather's estate; no these were dark and wild monsters with roots as thick as Soli and leaves dense enough to block out even Lythra's rays during High Summer. Gnarled old oaks that, he imagined, would creak and groan with every stiff breeze as their thin branches clattered together in a whisper that carried from tree to tree into shadow and darkness.

Soli jogged back from the edge and froze in place. This was someplace wild. Someplace far away. Like from history, from the ages before the Integration when people worshipped wild spirits or nothing at all instead of the Daughters.

Anything could be lurking out there; fire breathing lizards, giant blood-thirsty eagles, dosrowi, direwolves, frog monsters. Or even… owlbears. He shuddered involuntarily. Really anything could be out there.

Maybe it was actually a good thing that he was trapped on a plateau with no way down. That meant that nothing had any way up either.

Sighing heavily, Soli took a step back and promptly tumbled ass over shoulder back into the dirt. He saw the sky and then the dirt and then the sky again. His head rang and his vision swam, blurring the clouds and the dirt into a thick soupy mess of colors and streaks that he couldn't make sense of until he blinked away the tears in his eyes and massaged the ringing out of his head.

Briefly he tried to stand, giving up when his knees shook unsteadily beneath him.

Instead he collapsed onto his butt, planting his hands on the ground behind him and staring up at the clear sky. He'd forgotten about the dip of land and fallen over its edge. Deep enough to make a sizable puddle it was at least three times as long in the direction he'd fallen from than crosswise, and split up into a handful of smaller, and shallower, craters towards the 'front.' And the dirt at the edges packed up tighter,like it had been built up deliberately and pounded into shape by something heavy.

Maybe there had been some rocks here. But then what had carried them off? Or… maybe this was something's nest, in which case whatever had made it would have been at least big enough to swallow Soli in one or two bites without much problem. And things — animals or monsters, it didn't matter — that big didn't just run off for no reason.

Not once they'd made them a home.

So, maybe, Soli thought, it isn't such a good idea to stay up here. Maybe I should go back to looking for a way down.

Down into that old and dark wood where anything could lurk.

In that moment he very desperately wished for someone, anyone, else to show up. Rangers. Dax and Miriel and the others. Even the black shell people. But no one else joined him on the strange plateau.

He was on his own. In the wilds. No idea where he was, much less how to get home. And no supplies. Water. That was usually what Captain Thellere thought of first. People needed water, you could die of just thirst. And looking around he did not think there was any place for water to be hiding on this little patch of dirt.

So.

He definitely needed to go down into that old and dark wood where there would probably at least be some streams or rivers, maybe even a nice fresh spring, and there would be bushes and birds and other things. Rocks. Sticks. Berries and nuts. Old fallen branches. Things he might be able to use to survive.

Maybe, he admitted. The thought echoed in his head.

After several more moments of blank faced contemplation he got up and made his way towards the edge again. Slowly.

It had looked very far down the first time he'd peered over the edge but that had been from a little ways back, and so now Soli was thinking that maybe it wasn't so far down or that the slope wouldn't be so steep closer to the bottom. There might be ledges he could rest on. Possibly even a steep path just over the side. He wouldn't know until he looked.

Step by step he made his way, until he was just a few steps from the cliffside. His heart was pounding against his chest like he'd just run all the way home from school Soli leant forward just enough so that he could peer over the side.

And looked down. Down. Down.

His vision swam.

There was no path. No ledges.

From so far back it was a little difficult to tell exactly how sheer the drop was over the side, he couldn't properly see the bottom itself, only the rolling terrain of the forest creeping up to the foot of the cliff face. So he dropped to the ground and crawled to the edge.

Craning his neck out over the lip, Soli thought he saw the ground turn rocky and barren as the trees scattered against the rocky limit of the plateau like a wave. But it was hard to tell. Some bits of the cliff lower down did stick out, making it harder to tell what was jutting rock and what was rocks below. So he shuffled a little closer, edging so that his shoulder peeked out past the cliff.

He still wasn't totally sure.

With stiff limbs and a thundering heart Soli dragged his legs underneath him and leant out even further. His fingers dug white-knuckled into the dirt.

Finally he could suddenly see all the way down the sheer drop to the very bottom. He swallowed against the thick lump in his throat. Reflexively his fingers dug deeper into the dirt. That wasn't not something he could climb. Not safely.

It would take hours (or seconds) and he would need equipment (or nothing at all except a deathwish); rope and metal hooks, a harness. All that sort of stuff that people used to safely climb cliffs and stuff. Which he didn't have. Though… maybe he could like weave some rope out of the grass lying around?

People did that. In stories. Of course they also usually knew what they were doing, and probably used longer grasses than the tufts of—

The ground shifted under Soli and instantly the bottom dropped out of his stomach. In a second he saw the horizon rush past him, racing for the sky, before the world inverted on him and the forest canopy below loomed suddenly large all around him, stretching towards the horizon even as it sped away. Clouds slipped away behind him. Wind caught his clothes, dragging his pants and shirt into puffy, useless parachutes ballooning out behind him and whipping the strands of his mousy brown hairs into wild tangles.

He screamed.

A sound of terror and despair and hopelessness that joined to the howling whistle of his fall.

He fell and fell. And kept on falling.

Over seconds that stretched on like months and years his instinctive terror gave way to a raw, considered, fear and horror as the horizon continued to speed away and the sea of green below bent up and up to fill his entire vision. Trying to turn his head and catch sight of the sky (why? Why? Why? How could that do any good?) only sent Soli tumbling through the air. He spun about like a top.

It was hard not to be sick. Hard to be sick too.

The simple force of the fall jammed up against everything inside him in all directions. Soli coughed and felt his stomach trying to seep out through his mouth with a hot sizzle.

He spun about again and ended up staring up at the clear blue sky, stretching like a crystal dome overhead. Kiestre burned brightly overhead. At least it wasn't dark. That was a little thing, but it was good to see the sun again before he… before.

Something thin whipped across his back, drawing a hot line of pain. More joined the first in quick succession, but he had little time to even take in the burning mass being sketched across his back because one of his arms hit something thick and hard and Soli spun about again.

Colliding with more stiff, unyielding somethings he bounced and spun in more and more directions. Dozens of tiny branches raked across him.

Soli didn't even scream. Everything was happening too fast for pain or anything beyond the next impact. There was nothing in him but the moment. He fell and fell and fell through layers of leaves and branches and air, lost in a sea of blurring shapes until at last he hit something and did not bounce, did not continue falling. In fact, he stopped entirely. finally he hit something he didn't bounce off of. Something soft (softer) and firm and unmoving.

All at once the pain reached him. Hot needles spreading out across his whole body like a fire, sinking into his bones and marrow and sitting there in aching pools of silence. It was both more and less than he'd expected. He didn't have it in him to cry. Or move. Just breathing was a trial enough that Soli only managed because he couldn't stop. And so he lay there.

For how long he didn't know.

Long enough to believe he was dead.

But he wasn't.

Dead people didn't lay on the ground feeling their bodies ache, they didn't feel their bones protesting with every breath or the blood drying against their skin. No, dead people were born aloft in rays of sunlight, carried up to one or another Daughter to be welcomed into their warm embrace and become another lick of their eternal radiance.

Or so the priests and priestesses said.

So Soli was not dead. He was too miserable to be dead.

And eventually he even acknowledged this truth and — slowly, oh so slowly — sat up to acknowledge the world itself again.

He'd landed in a small clearing. When he looked up Soli could see his path through the tree canopy, an arc of broken branches and bent leaves. For how long it had felt like, it was a remarkably short path. He couldn't have hit more than three branches on his way down.

it wasn't as dark as he'd imagined it would be, not even beyond the clearing where the canopy closed back in, the leaves actually let in a lot more light than he'd though seeing it all from above. There were deep shadows in places where the trees grew close together but for the most part the view from ground level was clear and bright.

Not that he could see very far, there were just too many trees in the way for that. It was still a forest after all. But Soli could see most of what was around him, which was, in order of prominence; trees, trees, more trees (not oaks like he'd imagined), grass, bushes, flowers, and rocks. No snarling wolves or slobbering owlbears looking to gobble him up.

Not even a squirrel. Just the quiet sun-dappled stretch of wood.

And… no sheer cliff face in the sky.

Soli looked quickly around at the tree tops, looking for any sign or hint of where he'd fallen from. But, peering through the crowns of the trees he saw only clear sky, no towering face of rock looming overhead.

Like it had never been there.

That was impossible, mountains didn't just disappear. The wind must have carried him away in the fall. That was it.

It didn't matter. He was safe on the ground, a little banged up, but mostly just scratched and bruised; nothing broken. Just to confirm that Soli got his feet underneath him and managed to stand without any flares of pain or more than a little wobble. He moved his arms, poked and bent them, and though they felt sore and tender he didn't think anything was broken. Looking at his hands too, Soli didn't see anything beyond a few scrapes.

He was fine.

He just needed to find someone, anyone. Whatever the rangers had done to open those magic portals couldn't have sent him just anywhere, he had to be at least close to the original destination of the spell. Soli was sure he'd heard, or maybe read, something about spells going wrong and doing stuff like that.

So he was probably close to wherever the portal originally went too. And even though the forest had looked like it must have gone on forever from the top of the plateau, it couldn't, it had to end somewhere. He must have just been confused from the original fall.

All he needed to do was figure out where that would be.

What would Rangers want nearby? Obviously wood for fires and walls and other things like that. Hunting for meat was something that Captain Thellere was always having to do. Near the forest then.

Obviously, like a river or a lake for water.

But they wouldn't want their camp actually inside the forest, Captain Thellere was also always worrying about clear sight lights when he and his friends were defending frontier towns from evil sorcerers or hordes of cursed animals or what have you. So someplace near the forest's edge but also close to a river or a lake.

And if he'd had a map of the area Soli could probably have found a spot in a second. But he didn't.

From the top of the plateau the forest had really looked like it had gone on forever in an unbroken sea of green, not that he'd really take a look in all directions closely. He thought he'd been looking over towards the east when the cliff edge had fallen out from underneath him, but Soli couldn't actually be sure of that. Still if he followed the base of the plateau there was a chance he might find the edge of the forest on the other side, or if not that then he could maybe find something like a mountain spring. Rivers had their sources in mountains and stuff. Soli nodded to himself, yes, that made sense.

Now he just needed to follow through.

Brushing himself off Soli starts walking back in the direction of the plateau — if Kiestre is over there, he thinks, then that direction must be east — slowly to let his battered muscles ease into the motion. He's proud of his plan, in part because of how much it feels like one of Captain Thellere's plans; simple, but following on from a set of facts. After everything that's happened it makes him feel a little accomplished. Most people probably wouldn't have been able to figure out a good plan, they'd either sit and wait or just start wandering without having any idea of where they were going, but Soli figured something out. Reading the Captain Thellere books wasn't childish, it was useful, though of course he knows he can't count on them too much; they are just adventure stories after all. But. The writer (writers?) must have done some research, even if it was just talking to retired rangers or old hunters like his grandfather.

As he walks the trees start to grow closer together. Less like a forest and more like a dense picket that presses in all around him and over him looming with layers of leaves that start blocking out more and more of the sunlight. Leaving Soli in a sort of artificial dos'lya. He shivers.

But it's not so dark really. Not nearly as dark as it got back in Deylos.

Which, now that Soli thinks about it, is a little strange. One moment it was dark, with no Daughters in the sky (its own sort of bizarre) and then the next it was bright and sunny again. No matter where you went in the world it was always supposed to be the same time, that was just one of those things they taught you in School. Unless maybe the black shell people had been using some sort of super spell to hide the Daughters from delos and he'd simply elft it? Did that make sense?

Soli didn't know.

He'd never had much interest in magic, Talwyn's dad was always complaining about reagent costs and dues for his Lodge getting more expensive every year. Obviously the world needed mages. But that didn't mean he had to go into it.

He'd always imagined following in his mom's footsteps, becoming a herbalist or maybe studying animals for a zoo or something. It was too bad there didn't seem to be many animals around this forest. No bird calls. No rustles in the grass. Nothing.

Actually that was strange too. Sort of eerie.

But maybe it was a good sign? He'd always heard that wild animals, the ones that lived far from the cities and estates, were more scared of people and would run away whenever they showed up. Supposedly it could be a problem sometimes for rangers if they were hunting something smart enough to notice when all the other animals ran off. So maybe he was closer than he thought.

Still, it freaked Soli out a little.

Things shouldn't be quiet like this. Even his Grandfather's estate hadn't been as quiet. It felt almost empty. Like the school auditorium after everyone else had gone home for the day or a library late at night when no one was around. Tunnels of shadow and branch and leaf that shifted and twisted back in on themselves in a groaning, creaking labyrinth. Soft whispers of wind and rustling leaves following his progress.

Once or twice he stops and listens over the thundering beat of his own heart, just to see if he could make out anything. He knew it was probably just his imagination, but if he'd learned anything from Captain Thellere's stories it was that not paying attention was how you got captured by creepy cults or slaving dosrowi or fell into a cursed glade. Or just lost. This was real life after all, not a story.

Still, he stopped every once in a while to listen.

Also because it was hard going, it wasn't just the trees that crept in around him; thick grass and thorny bushes pushed out between the gnarled black-splattered white bark of the trees, their roots sprawling out to catch his feet if he didn't pay careful attention. Soon enough his scratches had scratches. He was sweaty and dirty. His feet ached.

More than anything Soli wanted to sit down and rest.

But he figured he was close to the base of the cliff — the wind couldn't have carried him that far really — so even as the minutes drag on and on Soli kept pushing himself forward. Through the next gap in the trees and over the next tangle of roots. Past the next line of bushes.

Again and again all that he saw was more and more forest.

Finally after what felt like hours and hours of wandering, sticky with sweat, his legs so sore they pulsed with his breathing, and feeling so wrung out he couldn't take another step, Soli grew so frustrated he simply stopped beside a tall tree. Standing dead still he rested his head against its cool, scratchy bark and just breathed. The wind blew overhead and faintly he thought he heard a voice. So faintly it was less than a whisper.

He looked up and waited. Nothing. Then, without thinking or meaning to, he called out.

"HELLO!?"

Even just that set his throat spasming with deep wracking coughs. The sort that shook his chest and had him doubling over for long seconds trying to regain control of himself.

When finally he had managed to draw in several unsteady, but clear, breaths and the coughs had petered out into nothing he swallowed against the crackly soreness at the back of his throat and listened. And was heard nothing but the quiet solitude of the forest and the wind whistling through the—

"... -lo -llo…"

Or not.

It was so feeble that he wasn't sure at first that he'd heard anything at all. But as the seconds went on and the silence reigned harsher and harsher over the woods Soli was sure that he had heard something on the wind. Closing his eyes he bent his ears this way and that hoping for something, anything. But nothing more came.

Soli frowned.

Had it just been an echo? Or the wind through the leaves making something that just barely sounded like a voice? He didn't know. No, he thought with a shade of his head, opening his eyes and scanning the forest around him. It had definitely been a voice he heard. Somehow he must have wandered off track, ended up close to the ranger camp by pure coincidence.

Or there was some village or homestead out there nearby and this place wasn't so wild and unsettled as he thought.

The only other possibility that entered his head was that the black shell people had followed the rangers. After all, if the Ranger's mages could open up some portals, why couldn't they? They might right then be scouring the forest looking people, tossing fireballs and lightning and all sorts of magic around. He swallowed that thought and listened again. Still nothing.

But, no. That didn't make sense.

He would have heard something like that, better than a single voice. And back at the camp in delos the black shell people had bothered being sneaky, so there was no reason they would be now if they'd followed them magically to the ranger camp. He had no idea how right he was. Hunger and thirst would kill most folk easier than a bolt or a spell.

Right, so on that assumption then it was safe to call out to whoever else was out there.

Probably.

With a nervous swallow, Soli opened his mouth again and let out another shout, "H-hello!?"

He waited for a beat. Then another.

Nothing answered back. He needed to be louder, Soli decided.

"HELLO!?"

While he waited he looked around at the small clearing he found himself in. It was nothing remarkable, just a small patch of wild grass and pale flowers surrounded by looming white-barked giants dappled with black and grey, their crowns arching high overhead in thick overlapping canopies of branches and leaves that cut off most of the light from Kiestre.

Overhead he could only barely make out the fluffy white streaks of clouds passing by through a small circle of light breaking through the leaves. Soli paced in place for several seconds. He gnawed gently at his lip and scratched himself.

A gust of wind swept through the branches overhead, setting them off rustling. Faintly, just over the sound of the trees he heard the voice again.

"... -ello…"

It definitely sounded closer. And it also definitely was not his voice echoing back at him, it was deeper, and creaky. Like it belonged to the tree themselves. One of his grandfather's servants had sounded like that, his head butler, who'd tottered about with a cane.

Cupping his hands around his mouth, Soli lifted them up and called out, "I'M ALL ALONE! TELL ME HOW TO REACH YOU!"

There was a long pause.

The wind blew again through the trees and more clouds rolled through the sky.

Finally, after a few moments he heard them again.

"... you … reach… alone… "

They must be pretty far away, he was only hearing a few words at a time. Or maybe all the trees were breaking up their voice.

"PLEASE! ARE YOU A RANGER? DID YOU COME THROUGH THE PORTAL?"

Shouting like this was hurting his throat a bit. He'd never had to shout much before, their house had always been small and usually he stuck close to his mom and dad when they went out. Maybe sometimes he yelled at Idith or Euma if they teased him too much or whenever they hogged the games.

That was usually just yelling for them to back off. Or for them to shut up. They didn't get into shouting matches. So for Soli this was a lot of shouting already, and if they were that far away it wasn't going to get better.

"DO YOU KNOW WHERE WE ARE?"

Not that knowing that would be of much help. Soli wouldn't know how to get home anyways, but he might be able to figure out how to get to his grandfather. Or one of his dad's brothers. If he could remember which ones lived close. Uncle Osterin lived in Ciembrelos, out by the Uorn Hills in the Marshwatch Marches far west of Deylos. That was sort of close to the frontier.

Soli's dad said he was in the local fire fighting brigade. He would know what to do next, how to maybe find out if Soli's sisters and brother were still alive. Swallowing against the sudden lump in his throat, Soli strained for the answer.

"... come to me… I'm Ranger… you are… alone…"

The voice was getting closer. With a sigh, Soli felt his entire body relax. He'd found the Rangers. He was safe. It was going to be okay now.

Another gust of wind. Looking up, he noticed that Kiestre's light was fading more as thicker sheets of clouds rolled in, darker tinged clouds more grey than white. Was it going to rain? Well it was a good thing then that he'd been found when he was, Soli didn't want to think what it would have been like to be stuck outside in the forest during a storm.

"... come to me… are you alone…"

A stiff breeze shook the branches overhead.

The voice sounded really close now. Glancing around Soli tried to see where it was coming from, then shook his head and listened carefully.

He'd already said he was alone, hadn't he?

"Yeah, I'm alone," he shivered, something didn't feel right. "Where are you... I- I can't see you?"

The wind picked up again. Branches as thick around as his arms shook and bent this way and that, their leaves rustling. Dirt and twigs and other bits of debris were swept up into the air as it surged in a torrent of force that picked at Soli's clothes.

He shivered against the chill.

"... see… you are… alone… I come to you…" the voice whispered from right by his ear "... through the… tell..."

With a yelp Soli whipped around, but there was no one there. Just white-black branches shaking in the wind, thorny bushes shuddering, and deepening shadows creeping across the ground. And then he felt something — a hand, a finger, a claw? — at the back of his neck. He spun again. Nothing.

This was wrong, whoever this was wasn't a Ranger. Might not even be a person.

"Wh- who are you? What do you want? Please, I'm— "

What? Scared? Alone? Weak?

Soli didn't think he had to tell whoever or whatever was doing this that he was any of those things. His thoughts urged him to run, but his legs wouldn't move.

Again the wind surged.

"... I… the where… you are…"

What did that mean?

"I- I don't know what that means? Please, I'm just trying to get— " he stopped again. Where, where was he trying to get? Home? To safety? "... out of here. Can you show me the way out? "

The wind again.

And then the voice, still from behind his ear, "Out here… alone… out here… alone…"

He spun around again and it was just the empty air. Were they just darting in behind him and then running away superfast? Or keeping themselves invisible with some sort of spell? Why?

No. He could still feel them- it, whatever was talking to him and it was behind him, it was all around him. In the wind and the trees.

Like one of those spirits from before the Integration and some of Captain Thellere's farther flung adventures, the ones that ruled over isolated villages, demanding worship over the Daughters. But then, what did it want from him? Spirits like this in the stories never did things without reasons, they never came to people without wanting something from them.

Even when it looked like they were offering something for free it always came with a price. Not because they were always evil, though a lot were (or at least selfish and cruel and uncaring), but just because they were so different from either the Daughters or people.

"Hee… hee… hee… you are out alone… can't out…

Again something brushed the back of his neck and again Soli spun around to try and catch it, but there was nothing except for the endless stretch of the forest swallowing itself in branches and bushes and shadows. The wind had died down a little. He didn't understand what the spirit was trying to say; he already knew he was alone, but what did 'can't out' mean?

Why did it speak so strangely? Some bits it managed clearly and others it would jumble up the words into funny orders that only barely made sense. Like a little kid repeating what his parents said. Maybe, like a little kid, it didn't really understand everything.

It could just be repeating the things he was saying, trying to figure Soli out at the same time that he tried to figure it out.

Overhead a branch groaned under the wind and the voice came against, rasping like two branches rubbing together, "... here you are… all… way... all… way... all… way... hehehe..."

He shuddered, that laugh (he couldn't think of it as anything else) wormed inside his gut to gnaw on his insides. Soli didn't like it. What did any of it mean, though? 'Here you are?' 'All way?'

Yes, Soli was here. Wherever here was, at least. But what about the other part? Was it trying to say that he'd been going in the wrong direction, or the right one? Or maybe that he needed to keep going? Or maybe even that he could pick any direction?

It was a riddle of some sort. Spirits in stories always talked in riddles of some kind, though usually those tied back to something earlier in the story. Some clue that Captain Thellere, or the pretty mage or sage he'd rescued, had picked up earlier in the story. Usually it was some sort of local folktale or an ancient legend. Once it had been something to do with fashion that Soli hadn't understood. Captain Thellere didn't always have to give the answer to the spirit itself even, sometimes the realization was enough.

Soli often had it figured out before the Captain, by a page or two, but it was still always—

Oh.

'Here you are always.'

Spoiler: Author's Note

Back to Soli. And back to the long, terrible list of things that happen to him. I've never really tried to write 'horror' before and from my own reading it's definitely not close to that, so I would definitely appreciate any thoughts on what does and doesn't work here.

 

[CuttleFish2.0]

Chapter 6

As he ran, again, the voice followed him on the wind.

"Hahaha… haha… ha..."

It wound about the boughs of the trees and swooped through rustling leaves with every gust, chasing Soli a shadow that skittered up his spine on a million tiny, hairy legs. Every throatless laugh punctuated by the groan and creak of ancient tree limbs bending to the wind.

Soli's heart beat up against throat. Sending his blood roaring in his ears.

"Haha… ha… hahaha… ha… haha…"

Broken twigs stuck in his sleeves, torn leaves clung to his hair, and everytime he brought his left foot down he felt a rock digging into his heel. He did not dare stop. Stopping was death.

Everytime he slowed even a fraction, when the wind ebbed low and he thought perhaps that whatever spirit chased him had given up the hunt, the laughter would come back, mocking and cruel, cutting through him like tiny cold little knives. Despite the heat coursing through his body and the sweat dripping off him Soli thoughts were scattered and disjointed, shattered by the icy hammer of fear. There was only forward. Only the next step.

"Ha… haha…"

And so Soli ran on, pushing through bushes and scrambling over tangles of roots in a mad dash. Overhead grey clouds swirled across the sky in a roiling presage to storm, threatening rain.

Yet none fell.

From between the branches of trees and beneath hollows at their bases the shadows of the forest followed him doggedly like probing tongues. Or the flickering, edgeless teeth of a vast diffuse mouth closing in around him.

He ran harder, faster. Pressing deeper into the wood.

But no matter how fast he ran, that voice on the wind was perpetually nipping at his heels with toothy shadow and child winds that pricked his terror into a shrill scream. Weighty despite its insubstantial substance. A pressure at his back, sidling up on him like a noose, hanging off of him like a tattered cape that dragged and caught on every passing snag.

Around him the wood swims and dances. Trees stretch high into the sky, bare crowns hungry for water (blood), even as the tips of their branches reach down for him. The edge of his sandal hooks on a thin root, ripping it out of the dirt, and sending Soli tumbling into the rough bark of the nearest tree. His hand tears off a strip of black mottled white bark.

"Hahaha…" the wind picks up with the laughter, stirring leaves and dirt into the air.

Bouncing off the tree, Soli drops to his knees and dives into a wall of bushes. Scrambling forward on all fours he crawls beneath the thin branches which tug at his clothes and scrape along his arms and legs where they ride up. Waxy leaves tickle the back of his neck and catch in his hair. In the shadows all around him something else stirs, a thing of fur and teeth and dull claws, dashing over Soli with an angry buzz as it scrambles over him.

He kicks. Turns. Tries to throw it off.

But it's already gone; disappearing deeper into the undergrowth, a thin streak of shadow.

Soli stares in the direction it went. Waiting for the inevitable boil of tiny furred bodies with gnashing teeth and empty bellies; Captain Thellere always has to fight off some weird unexpected threat in the beginning. A moment goes by. Then another.

Nothing.

He breathes out his relief.

A second later, ghosting through a gentle breeze, the voice is in his ear, "Haha…"

Pushing forward, pulling on the sturdiest bits of bush he can grasp and jamming his knees into whatever bit of rocky soil he can find purchase on, Soli tries to get away. Something sharp bites into the skin of his knees, he can feel the wet slick of blood smearing across it, but he just keeps shoving himself forward.

Finally after several seconds of yanking and shoving he emerges back into the clear air with a gasp and promptly throws himself onto his feet, dashing back into the dense press of the woods.

"Ha… haha…"

All around him the trees grow darker and moodier. Branches sway hard in the wind, gnarled and twisted about like claws, creaking and groaning as if trying to break free and grab him. Against the dark-grey sky they loom.

He could feel them watching him hungrily. Waiting for him to stumble and fall again.

Running and running and running, he dashed heedlessly into the wood. Soli leapt over roots and crashed through undergrowth and slammed into trees, running pell-mell through the forest for what seemed, to him, to be hours and hours. Always still the spirit was just a second or two behind, following him with mocking laughter and cruel hunger. Nothing else.

Just him and the spirit.

Not that he would have noticed or cared.

Soli was solely concerned with getting away.

Unfortunately all hope of that died abruptly as he crashed through another bank of bushes and found himself heading headlong for the bank of wild and fast river. Sharp mossy stones and tall ferns buried the edge.

He only managed to stop himself short of falling straight in by instead slamming shoulder first into a large rock and bouncing off of it. Whirling around with his heart hammering up against his throat Soli glanced wide-eyed back at the loming woods as if he might somehow be able to spot the spirit coming. All he saw were the crowns of the trees shaking as the wind blew in.

Shoulder starting to pulsing with his shuddering heartbeat, Soli crouched down low, without taking his eyes off the tree line, and reached out to feel around blindly for something to use as a weapon. A branch, a rock, a clump of dirt, he didn't care what.

Finally his fingers touched damp stone. Clutching the rock in one hand he hefted it high over his head and readied himself for whatever came next.

Nothing, as it happened.

Slowly the wind settled into a steady breeze that occasionally gusted across the line of grasses and ferns by the riverbank, setting them swaying in a wave. Behind him the water burbled by. Somewhere far away a bird raised its cawing voice to the air. His heart dropped slowly out of his throat and settled for thumping against his chest, Soli swallowed and after another moment or too dropped his hand holding the rock.

Still no laughter. And… he thought the clouds looked a little less dark and broody.

He dropped the rock altogether.

Through a gap in the tree canopy the sun pierced down and lit up his little clearing beside the river with warm light that soaked through his raggedly torn clothes and sank into his flesh. Every second it cradled him Soli felt the shivers along his arms and legs subsiding. Warmth seeping into his blood and skin, wiping away the tremors of terror with a cleansing burn.

Only to be replaced with the shake of exhaustion seeping out of his bones to drag him down towards the ground. With a heavy sigh he collapsed against the stone and just sat there.

Back against the cool mossy stone surface and front warmed underneath the strengthening rays of the sun Soli lay there breathing in and out for several long moments. He closed his eyes and smelled the clean scents of the river and grass around him, sharp and breezy like the parks back home but with a hint of musty growth from the moss lining the rocks along the riverbank. Distantly he heard bird calls over the rush of water behind him.

It was peaceful.

Calm.

Like sitting in his room at home, the house empty, with the warm rays of Caithr — Patron Daughter of Honor — spilling across his bed to warm his face as he read about gilt meadowlarks or the swaying fields of goldgrass around Synon'Lathror that fed half the Homeland. Tension drained out of him like water falling from his body, leaving Soli floating on a bed of soft spring grass.

With a start he blinked open his eyes. He hadn't fallen asleep, he knew he hadn't. But it had felt like a dream for a moment.

He wasn't safe.

Soli knew with certainty that he needed to leave this place, get out of this forest and find people. Anyone. But how? During all the running Soli had thoroughly lost what little direction he had to piece together managed before, and now he had no idea which way was which and with Kiestre so high in the sky there was no hope of telling which way was east and which west.

Splash!

He jumped, scrambling away from the stone. Whirling into a crouch with speed that surprised him and flinching under the splatter of water the rained down on his head. But all that greeted Soli's eyes was the gentle burble of the stream and the forest stretching into dim shadow on the other bank.

Something must have fallen into the river.

And then it struck him, like a thunderbolt out of the blue, Oh, he thought with the relief of a cool breeze during high summer.

In the stories Captain Thellere was always following rivers. Usually up to their source, but sometimes after a bad encounter he had to follow them downstream to some tiny villages where he could rest and recover in some farmer or miller's house (where he was also usually tended to by their beautiful, innocent daughter). Figuring out which way was downstream was as simple as looking.

Training his eyes on the river, he watched its flow. To the right.

No, Soli blinked and cocked his head, to the left? Crawling closer to the edge of the river he peered at the fast moving water with an intensity he usually only reserved for math.

Definitely flowing to the right, he decided.

It had just been a… trick of the light that had made it seem like it was going in the other direction for a moment. Something in the way Kiestre's light reflected off a particular patch of wet rocks in the stream. He should probably get moving. The longer he stayed the later the better the chance that whatever spirit had been chasing him would return.

Nodding to himself he stood again and, after putting the river to his left, started walking.

It was easy. Most of the trees near the river's edge were young, meaning no big roots popping out of the ground to trip Soli up, and the ground was firm but with just the tiniest bit of give. Easier in a lot of ways than walking on sidewalks. He could have walked hours without feeling it in his feet.

Though he hoped he didn't have to. Especially considering it had been hours since he ate at the camp, and that hardly a full meal.

Gradually as he walked Soli started noticing more and more little critters in the trees and undergrowth around him. Tiny brown and grey birds (thrushes or warblers of some kind maybe? They always disappeared before he could get a good look) flitting from tree branches, squirrels scurrying up trunks, butterflies fluttering by, and more. Always near the edge of his vision so that when he looked they were gone; into the treetops, around the bend of a trunk, or simply lost in the glare of Kiestre.

What he did manage to see of them was nothing like ones from back home, or even like those he remembered from his grandfather's estate. From that Soli guessed that the ranger's portal had taken him west, towards the frontier.

Not too far,probably, portals were always hard to keep going in stories.

Maybe a county over then? Soli was only guessing, but that seemed like a suitably long way away without being ridiculous, and some of the land around Ciembrelos was supposed to be practically frontier despite being only a century younger than Deylos. Something about a nature preserve?

Geography was another of those things that he'd never really been all that good about paying attention to.

As he walked the trees started looking different too, towering farther and farther overhead until they were larger even than the giants he'd seen on his grandfather's estate (some of which had been over six hundred years old), but these didn't creak and groan with every breeze. Their roots had grown thick enough that Soli wasn't worried about tripping on them either. He kept an eye out for fruit and nuts, but either it wasn't the right season or these trees were the wrong kind altogether because he saw none.

Soli didn't even see flowers on branches.

Plenty of light filtered in through the canopy, despite how dense the forest was getting around him. It didn't feel as threatening as it had before.

Not being chased by some disembodied spirit that wanted to trap him forever in like the wind or something helped immeasurably. But also because he could see. And there was actual life.

Enough life that he actually almost stepped on a tiny little squirrel, only avoiding it because something in the branches above chittered loudly at him. Soli was so startled that he stopped dead in his tracks with one leg raised and promptly lost his balance, falling forward onto his face. Which was when Soli noticed the tiny little creature standing where his foot would have come down, staring at him with wide black eyes and an expression halfway between terror and wonder.

It must have been young because it was so much smaller than the other squirrels he'd glimpsed.

Sleek black in color with a belly of dark red, it had a long straight-ish tail that almost seemed to glow as a ray of light caught it through the tree canopy. Its' ears came to a long point only extended by the tuft of fur growing off their end. Cocking its head and twitching its long whiskers the little squirrel slowly opened and closed its mouth, almost as if trying to speak to Soli, though no sound came out

Both spent several long minutes staring at one another, black eyes gazing into green as the wind stirred the canopy overhead and carved slow arcs through the canopy across the forest floor. Did fear keep it locked in place? Or curiosity? Wonder at the strange giant stumbling through the woods?

Soli was startled from his thoughts as another angry chitter came from above his head.

Glancing up he was confronted by a much larger squirrel, identical in form and color to the one on the ground except for its size, hanging off the tree trunk above his head. Its' parent maybe? And then he saw the others, dozens more squirrels, crouching on branches, hanging from other trunks, and standing on the ground all around him in a rough semi-circle. Big and small, golden brown to dark auburn to midnight black, young and old, sleek whippets and solid brawlers, in all the possible variations he could imagine.

They gazed at him with an intense watchfulness, a dim shimmer of emerald light in their eyes, like a cat's in shadow except brighter and purer.

Overhead the wind had stilled.

More chittering and this time it seemed to catch the younger squirrel's attention. It looked up at the nearest squirrel, the one perched right above Soli's head, and chittered back softly and quietly.

The bigger one answered again and Soli could have sworn that the little squirrel looked… chastised.

Another chitter and with a final moment of connection as their eyes met the young squirrel was gone, disappearing up the trunk of the nearest tree in a flicker. The others waited a long moment, staring down at Soli with unreadable expressions, before they too scurried away; disappearing around trunks and into leafy canopies. He could have sworn some fo them simply, faded away into sunbeams.

He sat there for several moments, breathing slowly as he waited to see if anything else would jump out at him.

When nothing did he slowly stood up and, brushing off what little bits of dirt and grass had clung to his frayed and stained clothes, turned back towards the river. Following its meandering course he paid a bit more attention to his immediate surroundings rather than the scenery after that.

Sometimes he though he saw squirrels following him in the branches overhead but whenever he looked it was only the shadow of some leaves or a pair of branches crossed over each other to make it look like a squirrel. Briefly. Out of the corner of his eye. Plenty of birds. Little song birds pecking away in the dirt and grass searching for bugs or seeds and even a couple of owls snoozing in the nooks of a few trees. Part of him wanted desperately to sneak closer to get a better look at those, but he knew he shouldn't. Wild animals were dangerous. Once while rounding a large rock half buried in the bank of the river Soli caught a glimpse of a deer, or at least something with hooves and fur, disappearing behind a dense copse of trees across the way.

There were actually quite a lot of large rocks lining the riverbanks on both sides. Sometimes the clustered so densely and were arrayed so neatly that he almost thought they were the remains of some old, ruined wall. But they were too big for that. Just regular rocks that happened to be beside a river.

Every once in a while he would try to figure out the time by checking Kiestre's angle in the sky, but it wasn't nearly as simple as the Captain made it sound in the stories, plus he could never be sure how much it should have moved. It felt like Soli had been walking for hours, but as best he could tell he'd actually only been walking for an hour, maybe an hour and half. Part of his problem was that he couldn't see the horizon. If he was in some sort of valley, with its walls hidden by the tree cover Kiestre might be a lot lower in the sky that she looked, but if he wasn't, or even if he was on some sort of really big hill she might be higher than he expected. That was, if Soli was even doing it right in the first place.

More worrying than that though was that the forest around him didn't seem to be thinning out. Rather it seemed to be getting denser again.

And darker.

The trees grew closer together and taller,their canopies of leaves thicker overhead. Less and less of Kiestre's light was reaching the forest floor with every moment.

Quieter too. No more song birds. Just the sound of the rushing stream, cold and lonely now, and the wind rustling the leaves. On the ground the shadows grew long as once again dark-grey clouds rolled across the sky in long billowing sheets.

He shivered.

Maybe he should have gone upstream instead.

Something cold and wet touched the back of his neck, Soli flinched and turned. Looking up, he half expected rain to fall on his face, but instead he was met by an immense, many limbed shape that loomed over him, saliva dripping from twitching fangs as eight black, lidless eyes drank him in with hunger.

From its thick, bulbous body a thin forest of hairs sprouted alongside eight long limbs that spread out across two trees and at least five separate branches. Against the white and black bark for the trees and the pale green of the trees it's grey-green dappled body almost blended into invisibility.

Nearly, but not quite.

It hung there, watching Soli for many long moments, its twitching mandibles opening and closing as if to draw him into its drooling mouth. Flexing and spreading they dripped thick saliva down onto the forest floor. Slowly it inched forward on its long hair legs, letting out a slow hiss like the sound of a dozen cats strung together.

Soli took off running. Again.

Spoiler: Author's Note

Not super happy with this chapter. Scary stuff isn't really something I've ever done before and I'm not sure I feel like I hit all the right notes here. Boy, Soli really is doing a lot of running away, well he is only twelve.

Comments and critiques welcome! Or just questions.

 

[CuttleFish2.0]

Chapter 7

Cazandra woke with a sharp start at the distant rooster cry. Blinking up at the rough wooden beams overhead she groaned out a series of curses from deep within her chest.

First the damned bird itself and the sun for waking it. And then the farmer that owned it for not slaughtering the misbegotten thing. Then she cursed the gods — not by name, Cazandra might not be a devotee to any particular pantheon but neither did she wish to invite trouble — for first unleashing such a scourge on an otherwise peaceful existence. Her ancestors for putting her here. Then she cursed the weave of magic itself, for dragging her across the country to the limits of civilization. And finally Cazandra cursed herself for not running away on any of the thousand mornings before this one.

Once she was done cursing anything and everything she finally got up out of bed, throwing off the scratchy sheets and stretching her long scaled body in the thin morning light peeking through the lone window. As she padded over to the washbasin in the corner of her rented room Cazandra wished, not for the first time, for an east facing window to warm under, though at this time of year and this early in the morning it would hardly do much. Wetting one of the clothes set beside the basin she began to gently scrub at her neck scales. Her mid-year molt had ended two days ago but there was a stubborn bit right under her jaw that was being stubborn about shedding.

Five years ago she'd been dashing around the house, chasing after one of her cousins in some game or another and ended up tripping, foot caught on a bunched up rug or uneven floor or something, and slammed her chin into a table. Split open her jaw. Bled everywhere. Mostly the scar had faded, but sometimes old skin didn't release properly from it during molt.

After a few minutes of gentle scrubbing Cazandra gave up and started dressing.

Thraikon like her didn't have the same soft, squishy bits that humans and dwarfs and beigr thought needed so much covering up, but the Republic of Highmourne was far enough north on Cimer that it got cold enough she wouldn't want to walk around naked anyways. Supposedly people in the Zho-Thrakene colonies down south, that is thraikon people, went about in just sashes and jewelry. But then half of the colonies were arid desert and the other half was sun-soaked plains. All the stories her grandpapa told of his youth in the colonies, back before his own parents had made the trek for the Republic, certainly focused on how prudish the northerners were in comparison. He was always quick to emphasize that it had been worth it though, to get out from under the imperial thumb; though Cazandra suspected it had less to do with onerous impositions and more to do with being outcompeted by the big merchant Houses from the core territory across the Scalding Sea. Old as Highmourne was (three centuries, give or take a decade, according to her tutors) its laws did less to entrench power in a few select hands.

Merchant concerns can and did rise and fall within the Republic, allowing an ambitious and canny family of thraikon to rapidly establish themselves. Her great-grandfather had started with nothing more than a rickety cart and turned that into a handful of riverine barges that Cazandra's grandpapa and father had managed into a mercantile house with connections stretching from the Kandswahr back all the way to the colonies. And in the last few years her dad had even managed to sweet talk the Rautavaara, a goodly sized beigr clan, to give them exclusive first pick of the shipments from their forges.

Beigr steel could sell for a two-hundred percent markup. Not in the Republic.

Too much good steel was produced natively for that, but marcher lords would snap it up in a heartbeat and Iyalim was always hungry for metal to forge into arms and armor that it could sell on to the mercenary companies and petty kings of the west. Someone was always going to war with someone else in that area.

But those were all the concerns of a Cazandra four years younger. Today she needed to be up and dressed and moving.

First, on went a white linen shirt followed by a pair of dark tan trousers, both sent over by her family, the less said about local prices for garments the better, overtop of the former she buttoned dark maroon and evergreen patterned vest. Then over that she did up the maroon and black long tailed coat with it's faux-gold thread in the trimmings, black tortoiseshell buttons, and the cuffs at the forearm so reminiscent of the navy fashion. Finally she put on a pair of black leather boots; open at the face and back to allow her claws room to spread..

Admiring herself in the full length mirror set beside the washbasin, the way her dress contrasted against the pale tan and pearl of her scales, Cazandra nodded in satisfaction and finally turned to leave. Down the inn's stairs she went, bypassing the sparsely busy dining room with its collection of wandering vagabonds and day laborers. She left straight out of the root entrance onto a roughly cobbled sidestreet. Long, foot trampled, grass grew alongside.

Thin morning light stretched slowly across the world. Overtop the city's western walls, the roofs of the buildings beyond peaking just over, while the grassy fields of its western approach rolled out behind her. Southgate was one of the Republics westernmost settlements, the other being Northgate just to the north. If she strained herself Cazandra could just make out the half-finished shape of Magister Duinne's tower peaking out in the northwestern quadrant of the city. Construction was three months behind schedule and showed few signs of wrapping up quickly, which likely meant another half a year of living in the inn for her. Not that she was paying for it.

Still it meant having to start her morning earlier than she would have preferred.

Theoretically she understood why the Magister had moved them from High Coast, Capital of the Republic, to Southgate, on its farthest flung outskirts; the Circle of Red Stars, some sort of Wizardly concern or something — Cazandra did not quite understand how it worked yet — wanted a deeper connection to the dwarf holds in the mountains bordering Highmourne, particularly Peaktop, nestled deep within the Stormshatter range. Doing that from a city just a couple weeks' journey away was much easier than doing so from one more than a month away. That didn't mean she wasn't going to grouse about it. At least within the safety of her own head.

It could have been worse. Southgate was a bustling trade hub at the northern tip of the Blackrock range (together the Blackrock and Storm Shatter Ranges split a quarter of the continent in half), funnelling goods to not only the Holds north and south, but also to Iyalim to the west and for overland trade there really was no other option. Northgate, being located, as the name implied, in the north of the vast valley between the ranges was closer to Peaktop. It was also, by all accounts, little more than a military outpost these days.

So it was that the Magister took them to Southgate. Where they could split focus between enticing the Archmages of Peaktop and managing the politics of the Republic.

As she joined the small crowd of people filtering into the city Cazandra spotted a trio of street orphans huddling in the lee of the gatehouse, two humans, though one had the dark complexion of the colonials that sometimes rode into High Coasts's docks on the big oceangoing merchantmen, and a dwarf, eying the morning crowd hungrily. Or rather their purses. Another disadvantage of the Tower not being finished.

Not that they would find any use for her things. Even if they could read she doubted they would be able to parse the pair of times she had tucked away in the sturdy bag slung over her shoulder. Maybe they could fob off some of the paper and inks she had. Not likely to be a large market for such things amongst criminals though.

Which only left her spellbook, though the simple leather bound journal barely merited the term, and that would be even less than useless to them. Not only was it ciphered, but the actual arcane theorems and formulae were far beyond what just anyone could understand.

Desperate idiots tried all sorts of things, though. That it had never happened to her in the four years since apprenticing under the Magister didn't mean it couldn't.

And tall as she might be compared to human and dwarf girls Cazandra's thin frame wasn't going to intimidate any street tough into doing, or not doing, a thing if they were set on a course of action.

Thankfully those eyes did not follow her as she passed.

Once through the gatehouse tall stone brick houses crowded the edges of the street line another, thicker set of walls. Long planters full of bright little flowers hung from the upper windows. Dusty windows glinted in the early morning sun. Painted signs hanging outfront announced each bar and shop as she walked by in intermittently fading and fresh color. And the din of the morning crowd battered her from all sides, the countless voices of vendors at their stalls and the city folk calling out to one another (in greeting or curse) mixing and mingling with the sound of foot and horseshoe and wheel against the cobblestone streets.

Market Street was the beating heart of Southgate. Its lifeblood the merchants and citizens and adventurers who walked it every day. Running the length of the city from west to east continued as one single line for most of that length, only exploding out into a dozen squares and arterials in the center of the city before collapsing again into the main road out of the city. From there it meandered through the hills, touching all the smaller hamlets and villages that lay beyond. Eventually it went on east towards Khinimas, then to Cutderr beyond that, until at last it would reach High Coast.

Ignoring the offers of bad beer and good company, amongst many others, Cazandra pressed on through the crowd. In the crowd she saw Iyali traders, diaries and account ledgers clutched tight to their sides, groups Alegni House merchants glaring at other groups of Alegni House merchants from their heavily armored carts like they wanted to do nothing more than smash each other's skulls in, and guildsmen from the Kandswahr eying up everyone else around them as if they might be called upon to wage war for their homeland. Dwarves and humans and thraikon mingled in a dense weave of life. She even spotted a beigr far off in the crowd, standing head and shoulders above even the few thraikon scattered about, in furs and leather.

But that glimpse was gone as soon as it came.

Cazandra broke off from the crowd and joined a thinner trickle of locals going about the daily business of their mornings. Away from Market Street the buildings lining the sides spread themselves open like mountain flowers, creating small little pavilions where men and women hung damp clothes off of lines strung between windows and bakeries and grocers hawked wares at more reasonable prices. Some few of these she passed waved greetings to her, but she all but ignored them. This morning she had little attention to spare for their niceties.

Tonight was the conjunction of Ziz and Uhron, when the two celestial bodies would almost appear to circle one another for a few hours, a once a decade event useful not only in divination rituals but also countless other arcane calculations. Which meant staying up hours later than usual to observe it. And that meant being tired and drawn out tomorrow.

Tomorrow was the eleventh. A day normally reserved for inventorying and reordering supplies and reagents for the Tower.

But, as it happened, she would be accompanying Magister Duinne on a trip towards the end of the month. And that meant its own set of preparations which needed to be handled as well. Plus her own studies and the usual work of managing the Magister's affairs (sorting through the letters and packages which frequently arrived), cooking too.

There was also the tome she was meant to be studying; Olbrecht Schoen's Metaphysics and Mysticism; on the relationship between occultic energies and the arcane, for which Cazandra was meant to deliver her report on the first section — covering the relationship between the primordial elemental planes and the cardinal plane, where normal life existed — by the beginning of next week. She'd barely read twenty pages so far. It was unfortunately an immensely dense work that was half arcane mathematics, which Cazandra could puzzle out easily enough, and half a work of history, which she struggled to read without falling asleep.

Her thoughts came to an abrupt halt as she bumped into the broad back of some day laborer or baker or hired tough. Blinking to herself Cazandra opened her mouth to tell them off and instead stopped.

Glaring back at her was a dwarven woman, frizzy soot stained brown hair twisted into a tight braid, wearing a heavy leather apron with tongs and a small heavy hammer at her side.

"Watch where you're going," she grumbled. Standing beside her were two more dwarves, though the heavy beards of their faces made it difficult to tell Cazandra suspected they might be her sons, and a tall muscle bound human standing guard over a cart groaning under the weight of several stacks of metal ingots.

But it wasn't them that Cazandra stared at, instead it was the bevy of troops occupying the intersection she'd been about to cross (Third and Ulton Street). Troops slowly coaxing an eight wagon train as a crowd of impatient onlookers glared at them. Someone up ahead shouted and four of the troops guiding the train broke off from rest, one a lieutenant judging by the bits of finery at his collar and the other three simply regular troops, to step in front of the crowd.

"Just a few minutes folks," he shouted, in the same tone that someone shouts that dinner is almost ready. Again.

By the grumbling of the crowd, Cazandra guessed this was not the first time. Thankfully the troops behind the lieutenant looked sooner ready to fall asleep rather than do any violence on his command.

And even more thankfully the crowd did not actually seem irritated enough to make it an issue.

More and more of the Republic's troops had been put on active duty over the last two years. She wasn't supposed to know it, probably no one outside of the upper ranks was, but it was all in response to intelligence on increasing movements from the Zho-Thrakene Navy. Prelude to another invasion attempt by the Empire was the paranoid bet. It had been more than two decades since the last time they tried pushing north.

Cazandra only knew as much as she did in the first palace because she kept the Magister's correspondence.

The Circle feared war. In large part that was why access and relationships with the Kavhrok Holds to the west had taken on such prominence. Their wizardry and arms might mean the difference between a continent plunged into all out war and a stalled invasion. Things were happening quickly. Sloppily even. Not that that was any of Cazandra's concern.

Especially right at the moment. No, what she needed was to be getting to the Tower.

And as this little blockage would certainly not be just a 'few minutes,' she needed to get around it.

Backing away from the crowd Cazandra glanced around her for one of Southgates many side alleys. Over the years and decades the city had grown over itself until each of its constituent districts was a multilayered web of streets, alleys, passages, and hidden warrens. Far from High Coasts neatly organized and corralled layout. It took familiarity found over months and years of living within its walls to learn to navigate Southgate.

She still did not quite have the trick down but she was getting there.

Spotting a likely route off to her left, Cazandra headed that way. Past the bookseller and clothier row after row of tenement housing crowded against each other so tightly that their chimneys nearly blocked out the sky. Cazandra had the alley to herself, or almost did. At the first split in the small side street a boy roughly her own age, dressed in threadbare and patchwork clothing stained from long use, was rooting around in a pile of debris.

She almost didn't recognize him from the gatehouse. It was too far for it to be happenstance. He must have followed her.

He was being careful not to draw too much attention. Too careful. Not even looking up as she approached closer, perhaps too used to the dense press of the crowd hiding him, and instead simply continuing to root around in the street garbage. He had to have companions hiding somewhere nearby; at least one at every exit, including someone following directly behind her so Cazandra couldn't just turn tail and run. Three then, at least. Maybe more.

That meant she had time.

For what though? Cazandra didn't know even a single offensive spell. Not that she would have used it if she did, her gut roiled at just the thought of it. But she had something that might be even better. A distraction.

If she could manage it under the circumstances. So far she'd only cast it successfully a handful of times, without distractions and after long minutes of slow methodical build up to each one. Taking a deep breath Cazandra proceeded up the alley blithely.

As if she hadn't spotted him.

Couldn't consult her notes. Or be too obvious with her casting, even illiterate street kids would recognize a spell if she started waving her hands about. Cazandra was forced to mutter the incantation under her breath to herself at the same time as she began the somatic component of the spell.

Months of practice had made it almost second nature to her. Almost.

First, pinch forefinger and thumb together. Then cock the right wrist one hundred and thirty degrees out from the sagittal plane so that it faces up towards the sky.

Release the pinch. Slowly. Feel the pulsing beat of the arcane energies flow into the conceptual gap, grasp them with mind and flesh; thumb and finger snap back together and squeeze against the tiny knot until it molded itself to thought and will.

Cazandra turned away from the boy at the corner just as her fingers snapped back closed. There in the alley was another one of the three she'd spotted at the gatehouse, the girl with the dark skin, pressed up against the closest alley wall. The whites of her eyes bright against the early morning murk.

A shower of sparks appeared between them in a puff of smoke. The girl recoiled with a yelp and for an instant Cazandra froze, surprised by her own success. Sure the smoke had a faint whiff of wet dog and the sparks were more like dying embers than the blinding spots she'd envisioned. But still it was a spell, cast under duress.

Unfortunately the human was still blocking her path and now starting to reach blindly for her through the haze and momentary light blindness. Dropping all pretense of secrecy Cazandra said the incantation again, the syllables of arcane meaning slurring together in her haste, "... ulmulyzc… " as she made the motions. This time the smell of wet dog was even stronger. Though at least the sparks were brighter.

Her attacker cried out again and reeled back as if struck. Into that opening Cazandra charged with all her speed, bullying her way past the smaller girl and making for the exit of the alley.

Fingers reached for her jacket. But caught nothing.

Bursting from the alley and onto the busy street beyond, she dodged around the cart of a vegetable merchant and took a sharp right turn. Someone cursed behind her. Up ahead, over the top of the shops and tenement buildings she could just make out the Tower. Cazanadra didn't hear anyone chasing after her, it would hardly be worth it, but still she didn't look back as she ran on.

Not until she was around the street corner and ducking into the Tower's yard.

The instant she stepped through the gate and onto the property the bustle of the city was cut off with a snap, replaced with the sound of hammers against stone and wood and the talk of a dozen dwarves in rough Lake District accents. Settling heavily against the wall beside the gate she took a moment to steady her breathing and stared at the work going on. Though everyone was always calling it 'the Tower' it was actually a tower on top of another building; the base was arrayed like a ring, two and half rooms wide and two stories tall with, with the base of the actual tower rising from it's northwestern corner. A courtyard in the center just wide enough for a pair of large carriages to sit abreast of each other. There was a network of cellars underneath it all as well. Most of the work on the base had been done months ago, but, on advice from a colleague, the Magister had decided the layout for the north wing needed to be redone to better harness the 'arcane geometry' of the Tower. Now Ohrn, the bald dwarf with an incongruous smattering of tattoos all across his arms and chest and back yelling down from a precarious perch on the second floor of the Tower, and his teams had half the wing in question open to the elements as they tore out to the insides. Half the yard was impassable.

With the enchantments on the Tower incomplete — and until the Tower itself was done they would remain so — it wasn't safe for anyone but Magister Duinne to be traipsing about on the upper levels. Thus each story had to be built on the ground and then carefully lifted into place and secured by teams whose time up there was carefully orchestrated.

Luckily the special designs and careful engineering required were familiar territory for Ohrn's crew. One of only four such in all the Republic that could do the work. Highmourne's Lake District, in the south of the country, might be their technical home, but if they spent more than four months out of most years there uninterrupted Cazandra would be shocked.

Making her way into the south wing of the Tower Cazandra came face to face with the signs of the Magister's efforts to prepare their own breakfast; crumbs littering the floor, used pans laying by the stove, grease smears on the countertops, a loaf of bread sitting out, the cellar door wide open, and a jar of preserve left without its lid. With a sigh she set about cleaning. Aside from seeing to the regular correspondence, and preparing lunch and dinner, cleaning the kitchen was one of her few more mundane duties. Supposedly because it bore resemblance to potion making and proper laboratory care. Cazandra wasn't so sure on that. But it was less than she would be expected to do back at home, her father had always said a good trader 'knew what it was like to sweat for a day's wage,' and thus a small price to pay to be learning magic.

After cleaning and putting things away, Cazandra agonized for a few moments over what to cook for dinner (a roast, she decided). That decided she was left free to decide her own fate for the rest of the date. Today was one of her many 'self-guided study' days, which meant that the Magister was too absorbed in their own work to bother with personal instruction and so she was expected to organize her own efforts.

Perhaps someone else might be frustrated by that lack of guidance, but she found it just the right sort of challenging. A little lonely maybe. But she had so far thrived.

Every few days the Magister would sweep up out of their personal laboratory underneath the north wing or down from the upper levels to test Cazandra's progress and assign her new goals or reading if they deemed it necessary. Sometimes the testing entailed quizzing on the details of the books she'd been given. Other times it meant intense practical demonstration of knowledge under all sorts of conditions (blindfolded, hands tied, drenched in water, two fingers bound together, and on). In the early days of her apprenticeship most lessons had boiled down to little more than rote memorization and recitation of the basic rules, laws, and theorems of the arcane arts. Cazandra had spent the better part of a year not even allowed to think about casting a spell.

Nowadays there were only occasional lectures.

And considering the upcoming travel that was unlikely to change, if anything Cazandra expected that the Magister's testing of her progress would take on even more bizarre turns over following days. During the month-long journey from High Coast to Southgate she'd been made to stand with her feet in pails of milk for two hours at dusk, on three separate occasions, simply drawing in arcane energy and safely grounding it while the Magister whittled beside her.

Now, at least, she had some actual spellcasting success under her belt. Under duress. It was only a back to back casting of prestidigitation, hardly even the most complicated of cantrips (that had to be either minor illusion or mending), but she still felt pride at the thought. And was sure Magister Duinne would be at least a little impressed.

In fact, now that Cazandra thought about it, her success was likely to accelerate the Magister's lessons.

After that she went up to one of the second story rooms in the south wing and practiced both somatic and verbal components of the spell for over an hour, trying to keep the same pace she'd managed in the alley. Sometimes she was successful. More often she was not. Unlike the more occultic forms of magical spellcasting, which relied upon the incidental occlusions of parallel planes (drawing on magic leaking in from nearby planes, like the Lands of the Fey, which was naturally more apt to mold itself to one's will, so long as what one wanted followed its nature) for the major impetus behind each spell, arcane methods required exacting precision; small variations in pronunciation of arcane syllables and the relative angles of hand and arm movements both affected the outcomes of a given casting.

Memorization and precise understanding of the mechanics were the only paths of reproducible results. And that still left experienced caster having to account for dozens, sometimes hundreds or thousands, of variables. Cazandra was nowhere near that level yet.

Which was why she was careful to take notes on the effect of all the variations. Cataloguing the sensations immediately preceding and following each step of casting to build up her own understanding of the complexities of the arcane energy flowing through the world. Recording minute differences between attempts. By the end of her practice she'd filled five pages. Over the following days and weeks and months she would compare them to other attempts and start slowly peeling back the next layers of arcane mysteries.

At around ten she abandoned her practice efforts and started the inventory.

Cazandra spent most of the day running between the various storerooms of the Tower and the kitchen. Occasionally she would hop back into her practice room and spend a few minutes attempting prestidigitation again. By late afternoon she had an idea for some of the major deficiencies in their stories. Restocking would be an entirely separate affair, Cazandra would need to go around town to the various merchants and see what could be ordered, comparing prices, and what sort of acceptable substitutes were available. The marked bones were like to be the toughest; you couldn't use just any old bone, had to be a certain size and whole, so no cutting up larger bones for the job. Sea-pearls and silver dust would be pricey but otherwise not an issue.

That was without even accounting for the alchemical stock. Potion making was a particular sort of field from what she could tell, and Cazandra was sure she would be traipsing about the rivers and creeks surrounding Southgate hunting toads and frogs and salamanders for their saliva sometime soon. Maybe even during their trip. Ick.

Even the more mundane needs, salt and grain and the like, were not going to be as simple and easy as usual.

Only months ago the Abernathy's, who had been supplying the Magister since they arrived in Southgate more than a year ago, had sold their farm to join some cousin or another around Gatzhel. Samuel Abernathy, family patriarch, had introduced her to Korin Drudash, promising her he would do right by her. But he had the look of a dwarf who'd never seen the back of a plow before a few months ago. Not much to do about it though, Cazandra would at least meet with him after they got back.

She did all this while also cooking and continuing her reading of Metaphysics and Mysticism.

Just as was setting the places on the over-large table in the dining room (in what Cazandra called the central wing, because it was between the north and south wings) she heard the doors of the Magister's study bang open. Footsteps followed, growing progressively louder over the following seconds. Then the doors to the dining room blew open with a sharp burst of air and in strode the Magister, mid rant.

" —a fire under that bullheaded moron's ass," they waved a hand as they passed, sending the doors crashing closed again behind them and glared at the food on the table.

Wrapped up in a glittery robe of deep cobalt blue that seemed almost to suggest a clear midnight sky parting just enough so that Cazandra could see the stained slacks and shirt clinging to their thin frame. They strode into the dining room wearing a severe frown, eyes glinting behind the pair of spectacles, festooned with a wild array of lenses set on hinge, pushed all the way up their nose. Rheithc Duinne was human, tall and thin like a weathervane, somewhere in their fifth decade, though with wizards it could be hard to tell, with a sunken face framed by long curling locks of dull auburn hair. Man or woman, Cazandra did not know. One of the many mysteries about the Magister.

Their mode of dress rarely provided much clue, it changed as often as the phases of the moons. That is, regularly, but not in any hurry.

Cazandra had long since given up pondering it.

"What rank idiocy and arrogance, insinuating that I— " that was when they noticed her for the first time since sweeping into the room. Frowning, they said apologetically, "Oh, not you Cazzie," an unnecessary clarification, "That old coot Castior sent me another letter on the- well, it hardly matters when all his suggestions are simple drivel. As if I need a lecture on thaumic dissonances between differing primordial substrates."

Castior was another member of the Circle of Red Stars and the Magister's rival. Or perhaps best friends. It was difficult to tell sometimes; the two were always exchanging letters, and other forms of correspondence, on their respective projects and studies. Two letters a month, at least, usually many pages long, without fail.

Finally with a sigh they shook their head and turned towards the dining table and their seat, "Well, anyways," they said, shrugging off the robe to hang off the back of the chair as they sat down, "Tonight is the conjunction, yes?"

Cazandra nodded even as she started carving the roast.

"Yes, Magister."

While she plated a healthy portion of meat and potatoes and carrots and onions, nearly smothered in sauce, she kept a part of her attention on them. Besides a passing interaction when Cazandra had deposited the day's mail by the study door, an exchange of greetings through the closed door, this was the first chance she'd had to speak to the Magister all day. It wasn't that she was nervous exactly, but, well she was.

The trip. Her encounter that morning. All her other work. There was a knot of something forming low in her gut. Pulling the offered plate towards them they nodded and Cazandra began serving herself.

"And what preparations have you made?"

"I have astronomic tables prepared for both Uhron and Ziz. As well as luminosity tables for the Arrows in Flight and Boed- I mean the Coin," Magister Duinne preferred the secular name for the second constellation, "During my observations of the meteor shower three weeks ago I noticed odd variances in their brightness; I want to see if maybe it was simply an effect of the shower or something else going on."

"Good, good… oh this is very well done," they said, holding up a speared chunk of carrots "Not too soft, but not undercooked either. Perfect. And what about the Wanderer? It should be full tonight."

Would it? She wracked her brain to remember, the Wandered was always the hardest moon to keep track of for Cazandra with its complicated and semi-irregular orbit.

Not that she doubted their words, but the question itself might be a test. Three weeks ago it had just started waxing to fullness, and that was during Fourth month which meant it had been shaded by the world rather than either of the companion moons. So, yes it should be waxing. But, was it important? Neither Uhron or Ziz were close enough to be directly affected by its pull, much less the stars which made up either constellation she was interested in.

Which was, of course, likely the point.

"Yes, Magister, it ought to be full tonight. I'll use it as a control variable, I might even have recorded the values last time to check against."

They nodded again, wiping their mouth of sauce with a napkin.

"Clever little rascal. And your other studies?"

"Going well. I have made good progress on prestidigitation, including two successful castings just today. Under duress even."

That got an eyebrow raise, and a soft "Oh?" as the Magister pulled off their collection of lenses and set them to the side of the table, leaning in towards Cazandra as they tented their fingers beneath their chin and appraised her with intense interest. She swallowed heavily.

She was under strict instructions not to attempt anything 'unduly dangerous' though their definition of what constituted 'undue' had not been entirely clear. Magister Duinne waited silently for Cazandra to continue.

"On my way in this morning there was- um, I was accosted- rather, almost accosted by a trio of street toughs. Uh, I escaped by twice casting the cantric as a distraction."

A single eyebrow raised itself high on their forehead.

"Street toughs you say? Big ones? Man, dwarf, or thraik?"

Cazandra swallowed again.

"Toughs might have too, uh- fearsome a word, they were, um- they were street kids. Two humans that I saw and one other that I didn't," well, she'd assumed there'd been at least three of them, "Er, I think. There were three of them at the west gatehouse at least, I believe they thought my bag contained significantly more value than it did, one of them tried to grab it."

They nodded slowly, leaning back in their chair and slowly picking up their fork against as they considered Cazandra with a long, lingering, gaze. A moment passed. Then another. Finally they relented and turned their attention back to the meal.

Cazandra let out a quiet puff of relief and returned to her own meal, stuffing a chunk of meat into her mouth hurriedly and beginning to chew vigorously.

"So," began the Magister after a moment, "Two castings, in rapid succession?"

She nodded, adding, before they could ask, "Minor inconsistencies only; producing emberlike sparks and smoke that smelled like dog, wet dog."

"Acceptable."

With that the conversation moved on to the logistics of their upcoming trip to Gatewatch Hold. The two week journey into the Giant's Cleft, the sparsely populated valley Southgate stood at the mouth of, to the Hold's gates was not to be done lightly. Horses would need to be rented and provisions laid in. Perhaps even guards hired.

Spoiler: Author's Note

And here's the third of the view point characters! Once again, not fully satisfied with this; feels like it's doing a lot of heavy lifting, worldbuilding wise, but not concisely enough.

Comments and critiques welcome!

 

[CuttleFish2.0]

Chapter 8

Soli ran and ran and ran.

Tree branches whipped past. Shadows hissed and darted out of his way. He could still feel the cold, hungry weight of the giant spider's eyes on him like eight beads of cold spring water roaming across his skin. All those tiny, tickling hairs scratching across his skin.

Its hot breath ghosting across the nape of his neck.

Around him the trees loomed, their branches casting long deep wells of darkness over the wispy patches of pallid grass that stretched in between the vast gnarled bulges of roots. A groaning creak followed Soli as he raced through the hateful woods. It was worse than being chased by the spirit, worse than tumbling staring up at the unblinking eyes of hundreds of too clever squirrels. He ran and ran, keeping a strange sort of broken time only by the frantic beat of his heart and the glimpses of blinding sun beyond the interwoven canopy of branches.

So far as Soli could tell he'd either been running for hours or minutes when suddenly, without warning the forest around him shrank away, in the same way that the surrounding towers of the city did when rounding the corner to a park. Looming giants dwindled into stout pillars, the canopy overhead twisted and stretched, admitting long warm beams of light to stretch across the forest floor where verdant grass swayed gently in a gentle breeze. Underneath his feet the earth flexed as enormous roots sank deeper into soil.

Involuntarily his pace slowed, his feet finding an easy path where before the trail had fought him at every step. He walked, his mouth agape as he marveled at the transformation of the forest around him.

And promptly walked into the trunk of an enormous tree.

Stumbling back and rubbing his nose, Soli gazed up… and up and up into the swaying boughs of a true titan of the forest.

Like most of the rest of the trees of the forest it white bark dappled with bits of black, like someone had taken a paintbrush and waved it in the trees general direction once. But where Soli would have needed another of himself to get his arms around most of the trees, this one he would have needed four more of himself. Even it's highest branches were as thick around as Soli himself, and the lowest ones were more than twice his height up from the ground.

Enormous burls dotted its trunk as thick strips of bark peeled away on their own where birds and animals had been rooting around in it for bugs. Moss dripped from some of the lower branches. Clusters of shelf-like growths dotted the trunk in what almost looked like a path of hand and foot holds leading up into the dense crown. About two thirds of the way up the tree was a dense pattern of knots and branches that looked almost like a face and above that a split that could have easily supported his entire bedroom back home.

Soli stared up at the tree for several long minutes silently before he blinked, shook his head, and glanced wildly around. But no hissing, slavering spiders jumped out of the surrounding trees.

After a moment he let out a long sigh of relief and leant back against the ancient's trunk, sliding down until he was seated in the nook of its roots with his knees pulled close up against his chest. But he had only a moment of relief before the tree itself shook and a booming voice roared out above.

"Hrr-hroom-harrah!"

Soli spun about onto his back and scrambled backwards as the ancient tree lifted itself out of the ground on tre thick rooty legs with uneven numbers of toes and began to turn itself so that the part of itself that had looked like a face, faced him.

Four of its branches shook themselves loose, sending bits of bark and leaves and twigs showering down to the forest floor; one began to scratch at the nook above its 'head,' two brushed through the nearby grass searchingly and the fourth simply hung loosely by its side. Then a… 'mouth' opened in the tree and out came the voice again.

"Ah-hroom! Who then disturbs my sleep? Is that you— "

And there followed some sounds which Soli could neither perceive nor miss. Like a familiar voice speaking from a room over.

He knew it must be a name, but when the moment passed, could not recall the sounds the tree had made. For there was no mistake that it was the tree itself speaking.

" —?"

It, the tree, frowned down at the spot where Soli lay. He stared back.

Swallowing he opened his mouth as if, maybe to speak, but no sound came out. Instead he simply lay there frozen with his hands splayed out in the faintly damp grass tickling his back.

"Oh! What's this? Hroom?"

Bending down low with the sound of a dozen twigs snapping and old creaking wood, the tree-thing brought it's barky face down towards Soli, stopping only when it was close enough he could have reached out and grabbed it with his hands. Up close it was astounding how little it's 'face' actually looked like a face. Its brow and nose and lips were not so much ridges of protruding bark as suggestions of shape made by crinkling and color. Eyes like empty pits (and yet somehow he thought he saw a pair of pupils focusing on him) stared down at him.

"What sort of sprite are you, hmm?"

And when Soli failed to respond the tree extended one of enormous tree branch hands and poked at him.

"Come now, don't be shy. Old Grandfather Beore shan't hurt you!"

His pounding heart finally jostled Soli into action, scrambling back he got his feet underneath him and backed away several steps all the while feeling blindly for anything behind him. Soli did not dare take his eyes off the tree. Again he opened his mouth, this time with the intent of warning the thing back, but again no sound came out and instead he simply stood there with his mouth working stupidly.

"Lose your tongue in a fight with a Grig," it laughed, and as it did another dusting of bark and leaves and twigs fell from its canopy, then abruptly it turned serious again, "eh?" But, hmm-hroom, if twas healing you were seeking, prepare to be disappointed. Old Grandfather Beore is in no mood for magicking today, nor tomorrow, or any of the days after. Not even for Winter's first frost," it paused and cocked its head to one side, then raised one eyebrow.

"You… don't have a Winter's firts frost, do you?"

Soli shook his head. The tree let out a loud grumble, going, "Thmm, ba-rum," before shaking its own head and pulling back slightly.

It stood there, considering the little glade they were in with a sweeping gaze, and ignored Soli. A gentle breeze shook the tree branches overhead and he could see a few birds preening in the branches of one of the trees at the edge of the clearing. Finally after several long minutes of silence the tree-thing stepped back to its full height and began to move back to where it had been rooted.

"Well, then sprite, be on your way," it waved one branchy hand at him, "Old Grandfather Beore needs his rest."

He gaped as he watched it poke and prod at the pit of upset earth with one foot, settling in one spot before letting out a grumble that rattled the tree branches all around and shifting about. It pushed the soil piled up at the end of the pit a bit, shifting it this way and that. But it didn't not settle in to go back to sleep.

After another moment it levered itself out of its hole and sat down heavily on the edge of it, staring contemplatively down into the pit as it began to hum. Soli's mind screamed at him to run, to leave and get out of there but his legs would not listen. Instead, his mouth opened of its own will and out came possibly the stupidest words he'd ever said.

"I'm not."

With a start the tree-thing looked up at him.

"Oh ho! So it can speak.What did you say, little sprite?"

"I'm not. A sprite, I mean," Soli didn't even know what a sprite was, only that he was pretty sure of not being one.

None of the stories he'd ever heard had ever mentioned anything like this — not the adventures, not his grandfather's hunting tales, or even the oldest children's stories the priests and priestess told little kids during the New Year festival.

"Hroom?" leaning down the tree-thing squinted at him, its barky face flexing and twisting so much like a person's he was almost able to forget it was a tree, before finally nodding, "Yes, hrr, tad overlarge aren't you... So, then, what are you?"

Again Soli opened his mouth, "I— "

"Too talkative to be one of the puhkrie," it stretched out one longed gnarled twig of a finger to tug at his fraying clothes, "Much too much color on you for a bhokie… and," it leant down again and sniffed him, drawing in enough air that Soli felt the breeze from it.

For a long moment the tree-thing considered, holding him in a loose hold by the ragged shoulder of his shirt as its large knotted lips hemmed and hawed.

"You smell of too much time up on hills, ba-rum hroom, taking in all that sun and winds. But I see no wings on you, so you cannot be one of the zylfrie. Thmm-harrah! A fine riddle. Well, then you have Old Grandfather Beore stumped... go on tell me what you are."

With that the tree released Soli and straightened to its full height again, stepping back to peer down at Soli with its empty, eyeless eyes.

He opened his mouth again and stopped before saying anything. What was he? He was a person, but what did that mean when there are giant talking trees and — apparently — other things running around too? Did 'person' mean something that could talk and think and walk about?

He didn't know. Clearly he and the tree-thing were different things; Soli's skin was made of skin, not bark, and he only had the normal two arms. He was from Deylos, should he say he was Deylosian? Or maybe his surname; Riath'kauva'an? Though Soli didn't think that the tree-thing would know or care about any of the history or titles surrounding his mother's family, it had been centuries since it had been anything more than a name. Maybe he should just say he was 'Soli' and be done with it.

After all, what did it matter what this giant talking tree thought he was so long as it didn't kill him.

Once more he opened his mouth, but before he could offer any answer the talking tree interrupted.

"Oh, ba-rum, I suppose you expect me to trade in kind for it. But you already know I am Old Grandfather Beore, hmm-hroom," it (he? He had said he was 'old Grandfather Beore) "Clever… very clever, little one, you have caught me in a fine, tricky trap."

With a loud thump that kicked up dust and dirt and leaves, the tree dropped down on its backside before Soli and frowned contemplatively and began to scratch at its 'chin' with two of its 'hands.'

Quite honestly, Soli had no clue what to do. He was lost and alone in a place that was strange and growing stranger it seemed by the moment. Strange too curious squirrels, giant salvering spiders, and talking trees. Any one of those would have been enough for one of Captain Thellere's adventures (well, maybe not the squirrels) and Soli had run into all three in less than a few hours.

And in all the running he had completely lost track of which direction he'd been going in, whatever chance of stumbling on a frontier village or a ranger camp was thoroughly lost. He could see that much.

"Help me," he said.

There'd been no conscious decision to beg for help. The words had simply slipped out of his mouth, but now that they were out there Soli couldn't take them back even if he wanted to and a large part of him did not want to. Whatever the tree-thing was, it hadn't threatened him or chased him.

As far as unexpected encounters that was his best so far in hours.

"Hmm-hroom, help you, Little One?"

"I- I'm lost," Soli swallowed the lump in his throat and tried to breathe steadily against the pounding of his heart, "Show me— " he stopped himself.

Clearly Beore had never seen anything like him before, so he could hardly just ask him to take him to more people like him. And without knowing where they were he could hardly ask the tree to take him anywhere useful. But he needed help, desperately.

Finally after a moment he started again, "Show me what's safe to eat," a tree would have to know that, right? "Um, where it's safe… and, um," he struggled to think of what else Beore could show him, then it hit him, "And show me how to get out of the forest."

When Soli had finished speaking the giant tree-thing just stared down at him, expressionless. Several long moments passed. He swallowed another lump in his throat.

Suddenly the tree jolted forward and up, standing again to its full height. He fixed his dark eyeless sockets on Soli.

"You ask Old Grandfather Beore… to… guide you?"

He leaned down so that his white, black splotched face was but a hairsbreadth from Soli's and he could feel the gentle breeze of the tree's 'breath' playing across his face in between his words. Somewhere deep within Beore's thick trunk something groaned and creaked, like the oldest parts of grandfather's estate as a storm bore down on them. Soli shivered and nodded.

Another long moment passed.

"Hroom, bold! Bold as brass Little One! Very well, you have your trade."

Spoiler: Author's Note

More running! Discount knock-off Treebeard will be sticking around for a bit; he's an interesting character to write for me, very unpredictable and yet his fundamental nature is incredibly settled. Very much unlike Soli, who is predictable but someone who has a long way to grow.

 

[CuttleFish2.0]

Chapter 9

Ash watched Colm watching the trickle of people flowing out of Southgate. Mostly farm workers and tradespeople, a healthy mix of dwarves and humans (leaning more heavily on the dwarves). She was laying out just below the crest of a small hill sat next to the gatehouse taking in a bit of the warm sun, keeping half an eye on Colm and the crowd.

Risca was nearby, just on the other side of the hill where the light was more direct, dozing, and Sair was down by the street, hiding around the corner of a tavern with Biter. They weren't planning on doing any actual snatching, Urven and Thom both were right then off selling the week's loot to Two-Thumb Tom so unless that went especially badly the crew wouldn't have any real money needs for at least a week. But keeping sharp was a skill on its own, so here they were hanging about.

It would have been a good day for it though. Yellow Caps were out light today. Just one at the gate itself, a young human man with sandy blond hair and the scraps of a beard peeking out from under the strap of his cap, with another two in the gatehouse. A handful had been caught poking around some army warehouse or something a few nights ago. Word was the army folks beat them black and blue then the upper brass marched down to the mayor and demanded the Yellow Caps wind down their presence in Southgate's western neighborhoods.

Given the way they'd been pushing everyone about for the last few months it might mean good things for Ash's crew. If the Yellow Caps were really shifting themselves away from the army. Best to give it a few days.

Maybe this was just the army shoving the Yellow Caps about because they could. Or some of the bastards being too stinking drunk to show up to work.

"Gods this is boring," groused Risca from over the hill.

Ash rolled her eyes and sat up onto her elbows. Looking down at the others she noticed that Peter had joined Colm on his perch atop a pile of boxes and the both of them were now more engaged in chattering about than doing their job.

Might have to remind the idiots to do their jobs, she thought.

"Want me to call over the Yellow Cap, tell him you're looking to go a round?"

Risca hummed, as if considering it, then said, "Nah. Tomorrow maybe," another beat, "You think the army will really do us the favor of shoving the Caps off our patch?"

Ash could hear the hunger, the anticipation in Risca's voice, she was almost salivating. Though the other girl couldn't see her, she shrugged; if there was anything Ash had learned from her years on the streets, nothing was ever certain until it was past. And even that could be tricky.

Once her parents had seemed invincible.

"Maybe. Not that I'll complain, two drunks start a fight you don't get between them— " Risca snorted " —but I tell you one thing, it's not for our sake."

For a long moment the thraikon didn't say anything and they both lay there staring up at the sky. The chill grass was still damp from the morning dew, too many clouds in the sky for the morning sun to drive it off.

"Hope they do. Might be able to go for something bigger."

Ash hummed but didn't say anything. Usually a big score was a few dozen silver thars, maybe a golden gier or two (enough to see them for a month or two), but she knew that wasn't what Rics meant at the moment. They'd talked about it off and on; trying their hand at breaking into some fancy shirt's townhouse around by the Circle, or one of the shops on Market Street, or even just a Cedar street workshop.

It was, just fantasy really. Daydreams.

Or so they'd thought, with the Yellow Caps maybe pulling back from the western reaches of the city there was a prime opportunity to do something. Probably nothing too big. After all, while the army might not go looking to arrest petty street thieves, apparently there were aws or something about what they could actually do outside of a war, they would respond to bigger things.

Hit a bank or someone rich enough and the army would be just as vicious. More even.

"Could do," Ash started, "We'll wait a few days, I think, see how things start shaking out before we— "

She cut off. Colm and Peter were no longer to be seen. Ash scanned the crowd, looking to see if maybe they'd rabbeted in the face of movement by the guards or just spotted a mark too good to pass up. But, nothing.

"Before we… what?"

Ignoring the question for the moment her eyes swung toward Sair and Biter, to see if maybe they'd reacted too and instead found the other two running in their direction. Something was happening.

Rolling onto her feet, Ash called back to Risca.

"Come on, something's up."

Just a second later Risca poked her snout up and over the ridge of the hill, first fixing her eyes on Ash before following her own gaze down towards where the other four were gathering behind the tavern. Her eyes narrowed and she nodded, pushing herself up onto her feet. Keeping one eye on the still flowing crowd (was it thinning out?) and the other on the rest of the crew, Ash sped down the hill at a slight jog. Risca kept up without a problem.

Something was definitely happening with the crowd Ash decided. By the time they reached the bottom of the hill they could both hear the shouts and arguments over the general hubbub of that many people in one place.

The rest of the Yellow Caps had come down out of the gatehouse to join their junior member out front and were trying to placate the crowd. Had there been an accident, some cart crashing into another? Ash had seen some nasty spills before. If it was something really dangerous, or just unpleasant enough to work around, it could take hours to fix.

Except… it was afternoon and most of the crowd was getting out of Southgate. Why would they care about some cleanup behind them?

Finally the two reached close enough to the rest of the crew that they could talk without the risk of drawing attention by having to shout.

"What's the fuss?" asked Risca.

"Don't rightly know," Biter said, and then, pointing one of his gnarled fingers at Peter, he said, "They was just telling us."

Peter nodded, "Yellow Caps stopped traffic. In and out. Which wasn't such a big deal for anyone already past the gate, or so we thought," he nodded to Colm, " 'cept they told people they had to be staying put; on army orders."

"Or be conscripted, then and there," Colm added, the other boy nodded.

Biter whistled. It wasn't that conscription was rare or anything, after all that was how Thorin's crew broke up in the first place, with half their people getting swept up after in a Yellow Cap raid. That was how it usually went though, you got nabbed by the city guard or some merchants hired toughs and then got the offer for service instead of prison or losing a finger.

Threatening a crowd of regular folk, who'd only been walking off to work, that was strange indeed.

"What do you think?" Biter asked after a moment, "War? Gotta be a war right? Some marcher lord down south getting to big for his britches, or maybe the Zoes are finally making a move again."

"No one's going to conscript Southgate farmhands to put down some marcher lord," Sair shook her head.

Ash glanced back at the crowd and the gate. Most everyone had moved off the road, clustering tightly into the alleys and grass lawns just off it, leaving a small cluster of Yellow Caps milling around the gatehouse nervously. A lot of the grumbling had died off to be replaced by surly glares backed up by frightening eyes.

Southgate wouldn't be on the front line of any war with the Zho-Thrakene. Not with a quarter of the country and the whole of the Blackrock mountains between it and the colonies. And the sort of magic that moved armies across mountain ranges was straight out of the oldest stories, the ones from when dragons still ruled over all the thinking people of the world, the ones her parents told Ash to get her to sleep when she was young and they were still alive. In other words, they were just that. Stories.

"Not the scalies," she said.

Then, with a glance at Risca, "Sorry, Zho-Thrakene."

Risca shrugged her broad shoulders.

"What do you think then?" Sair asked her, eyes intense on her face.

She was thinking something in the head of hers, Ash all but see the gears turning in her head. Of the whole crew Sair was the one who thought the most about the future. Did most of their planning.

And when she had questions about politics or history, Sair went to Peter. But for foreign stuff it was Ash, not because she'd ever traveled even a day beyond Southgate but because her parents had told her all sorts of stories about other places when she'd been young. They had traveled to Highmourne from somewhere way down south, Ash had never quite understood where exactly, having adventures and getting into scrapes and helping out all sorts of people.

She could only remember half the stories they'd told her, and those only in bits and pieces. Even if all the stories they'd told had been true that was no guarantee she was remembering them right. Still, in the end, she was all they had when this or that rumor reached them.

Foreigners could be good targets. Knowing what they valued and what they didn't could be the difference between grabbing something worth a pretty thol and ending up with a worthless trinket that you couldn't unload by paying someone to take it. Or it could mean you run a scam on them, if they were interested.

"Dunno," she shrugged, leaning out to look at the gatehouse again, "Could be war. Or just an exercise, maybe some general got bored sitting around drinking beer and wine, getting his fat ankles massaged."

Sair nodded thoughtfully, frowning in a way that said she was fixing that idea into whatever picture she'd painted in her head. Around the corner the crowd was starting to get rowdy again. Nothing like the the angry pulsing of the prelude to a riot (there'd been a few bad ones in the years after the Red Plague, Ash had ridden them out in the moldy backroom of a moldering warehouse with Colm and two other street kids) hot and tense with lingering fear and anger, just a low grumble of discontent.

Colm hummed, "My guess, if it's war, the army marches straight down the Cleft to the 'Kazash.' "

His lips stumbled a little over the name of the foreign desert that split Iyalim to the west.

"What," Biter frowned at the other dwarf, "You think the Republic is going to war with 'yali? Been generations and generations since we fought them, since before the Zoe's came."

"It's the west gate, innit?"

None of them had an answer to that. If the army was going to war, and it was going out of the western gate of Southgate, it would make sense that Iyalim could be the target no matter how long the two countries had been at peace or how stupid it sounded to march across half a continent.

"That'd cut off… all the trade into the city," Peter started, then snapping his mouth closed he swore under his breath, "Suren's left nut," then, turning to Sair, "Southgate, our Southgate at least, dies. Soldiers will flood in from all over, sure, but it's not smart snatching off soldiers, the army will conscript anyone they catch. We'll need to— "

"Hold up," Sair put up a hand, "It hasn't happened yet. Don't even know it will. For now we watch and wait."

Ash wasn't paying attention. Her thoughts were on the crowd. Something was happening again, there was no obvious sign, just something in the movement of the crowd, how it bunched away from the gatehouse and road. A mixed murmur of fear and surprise went through the crowd.

Through the gate she saw it shift and moved, like the head of a serpent peeking out from the shadows. Swaying and bobbing it passed from the dark silhouette to a vague suggestion of form beneath blue-grey canvas lumbering forward, stretched across two, then three, then four carts and on. Like a worm struggling across stone after the rain.

Soldiers marched ahead of it, two lines of three each with a single pennant showing the single blue star on a grey field of Highmourne at their head, and more beside the cart-worm at every wheel and spoke. Their armor polished to a gleam, spears held straight and proud as a pine. Five. Six. Seven carts, Ash counted until at last the last of them emerged into the greying afternoon.

Behind followed more soldiers, their marching feet sounding against the cobbled stone like a furious drumbeat. Four abreast they marched, rubbing elbow to elbow as their own spears dipped and bobbd in time with their pace. More than a hundred of them marched beneath the arch of Southgates western gate in a handful of minutes. Not that she counted them all.

Carefully, slowly, Ash picked her way closer towards and then into the crowd as the line of soldiers came on and on. She felt the others following.

Finally she reached the limit of the crowd and peered past the line of humans and dwarfs and the occasional scattered thraik to clap her eyes on the procession up close. There wasn't much more to learn. Even from just a few paces away she couldn't make out more than an indistinct shape of whatever was beneath those canvas covers; something long, with curves and angles, and bits sticking off of it without sense or pattern.

It was heavy, whatever it was, because the beds of each cart hung low towards the road.

But what caught Ash's attention was not the soldiers or the carts and their mysterious cargo, no it was a pair people, clearly not soldiers themselves, keeping pace with the column a ways back from the rear of the carts. One was a human man dressed in a long robe of bright, shiny maroon with all sorts of star and dragon and bird designs worked into it, carrying a tall staff of dark wood topped with an orange crystal that seemed filled with fire, and the other was a thraikon dressed in a complicated suit of jacket and pants with a fancy leather bag slung over one shoulder. A thraikon which Ash recognized.

Something about seeing her there and then irritated Ash.

Maybe it was the ridiculous dark green jacket, holding the thraik so stiffly and dangly trailing bits hanging off her ass like bird's feathers. Or the proud and haughty look of her upturned snout. By all the myriad hells, Ash could admit that some of it might have to do with having set off a pair of explosions in her face just days ago.

Whatever the reason, she wanted to wipe the smug look off her face. It was a crazy, stupid, reckless notion. Not the sort of thing Ash usually entertained, she might not be as calculating and careful as Sair but that didn't mean she went off halfcocked.

Oh it's not that reckless really, Ash thought to herself, it's just a step or two out of the crowd.

She had a knife. Cut the inside strap, let the bag fall a bit, catch it and then dart back into the crowd. By the time she's noticed, I can be lost in a sea of people.

As far as plans went, it wasn't so bad.

Better if she could have caught them in the crowd itself. Or at least gotten the crowd to step closer to the arching column, but he wasn't about to get people killed or injured by twitchy soldiers just to snatch a bag.

No matter how aggravating the arrogant look on the thraik was.

Heart pounding in her chest Ash took a step forward, coming even with the edge of the crowd, her hand went to the small knife tucked into the waistband of her pants. Not yet pulling it out, just putting her palm on its cloth wrapped handle. She would have to time this carefully.

Thankfully they weren't in and amongst the soldiers themselves, walking a little off to the side, occasionally speaking to each other in quick spurts. Not loud enough for her to hear over shifting and murmuring of the crowd.

Ash averted her eyes as the two of them stepped close, keeping them in the periphery of her vision even as she tried to make it seem like she was watching the marching soldiers. Probably the thraik wouldn't even remember her, but that was no reason to take the chance. Once they'd taken a couple steps past her, Ash took her own long step forward, yanking her knife up and out as she did.

Hooking the blade on the inner strap at the same time as she reached to grasp it with two fingers near the pit of the thraik's arm, Ash yanked hard. The strap parted without a sound and she felt the heft of the bag tug at her grip, letting go she watched as the strap slid across the thraik's shoulder and the bag began to drop fast.

But not fast enough. Ash had miscalculated.

She'd been too far behind when she cut the strap, or the thraik girl's strider was quicker and longer than she'd thought and the bag was already out of her reach. Already her impromptu mark was moving to catch her bag.

Shit, she thought. Come one, just come to me bag. I'll be your new owner, much better than the last.

Ash reached out, stretching out her arm and thoughts. Trying desperately to will the bag to fall backwards into her hand though she knew it was impossible (though she'd heard of some older thieves who could do things).

For a moment, a singular second which stretched on and on like the setting sun over the horizon, it almost seemed to work too. Despite the impossibility, she swore she saw the bag lift and drift in her direction. But then something deep in her gut shifted and the stone beneath her feet decided to do a little dance and Ash tripped forward.

Watching the ground quickly rush up to meet her face all she could think about was the slow graceful way the bag had moved towards her.

A flare of sharp pain shot out from her nose and mouth as her face met ground. Trying to roll away, Ash found herself unable to move. People were shouting all around her, calling out 'thief' and 'knife' and more. Boots scrambled against stone and she heard soldiers moving the crowd back, through the murmuring and shouting and clattering of armor she heard one pair of voices close by.

"Are you hurt, Cazzie?"

"Yes, Magister. Though I'll need to have my jacket tailored when we get back."

"Hmm."

Two pairs of feet moved closer.

"Get her up, please."

Clawed hands wedged themselves in between her stiff arms, and dragged her up by the armpit. Her head swam with the motion and little sparkles danced across her eyes. Ash could feel a thin trickle of blood making its way across her upper lip, a warm tickle that she ached to wipe away.

The face that looked back at her was the human's, staff held in one hand as he — no, she? They? Ash could not tell whether they were man or woman — leaned in to inspect Ash. Pulling a handkerchief out of nowhere they wiped at the trickle of blood on her lip.

"There. Skillful knifework, a little faster and you might have slipped away. Though trying to magehand the bag was a misstep, especially without the experience."

What the hell are they talking about?

"First lesson; don't try new magic in front of a more experienced caster."

Ash simply stared blankly back at them.

Spoiler: Author's Note

Sorry about the lengthy gap. I was actually out of town most of July, but I just got back home so I should be more consistent. Still looking for feedback, any comments are welcome!

 

[CuttleFish2.0]

Chapter 10

" —hra-hroom! Little One, pay attention," Beore's booming voice nearly made Soli lose his footing, "See those there," one giant gnarled limb pointed to a creeping vine, dark of leaf, that clung to the side of a drooping willow sat beside a trilling little stream, "Dreamberries, those. Chock full of pleasant fantasies and drowsy illusions."

From his perch about halfway up the giant tree's branches Soli couldn't quite make out the berries themselves, all he saw were dark little baubles curling up against the bottom of some of the leaves. They'd been walking for an hour so far. At first Soli had simply followed along, but he'd frequently had to call out to Beore to slow down so he could catch up and eventually the tree had agreed to be climbed upon.

It wasn't exactly the most comfortable ride. Every step and twitch and turn and pause nearly threw him to the ground again. Knots and bumps in Beore's bark dug into his rump, thighs, and sides, pinching his skin through his thin and ragged clothes.

"Are they safe?"

"Thmm ba-rum!" the tree shook its head and Soli yelped, diving to grab at the branch beneath him, "Excellent to eat, I never settle down for a quick nap without a tiffle of Dreamberries!"

In the stories Captain Thellere was always careful about eating unfamiliar things. But then he didn't usually have a giant talking tree showing him around whenever he was stranded, then again, could giant talking trees and people even eat the same things? Soli didn't know.

Besides, it sort of sounded like the berries put you to sleep.

Not helpful.

Soli found himself having to tighten his grip on the branch he was hanging onto as Beore knelt down beside the stream and began to sort of hum-chant nonsense sounds to the willow. Maybe they were words in some sort of tree language.

Listening to it was strangely relaxing, Soli felt his arms loosen their death grip just slightly. Not enough to let go. Just so that he wasn't trying to crush himself against the branch, he could feel blood flowing back into his straining arms and the low burn of the exertion receding. He breathed deeply.

There was a sweet musty smell in the air.

After a moment one of Beore's arms scraped at the willow's side and came away with a thick bundle of the vines, their torn ends leaking sticky white sap, reaching up and back to offer it to Soli.

"Here, Little One."

Sitting up, grabbing onto a nodule of bark nearby for leverage, he then reached out unsteadily to grasp the small bundle of vines from the talking tree's rooty hands.

The leaves were a blue so dark they were almost black and the vines themselves were a deep purple, but the berries were a swirl of blues and purples and reds and oranges strung through with miniscule, nearly invisible, flecks of white. He brought them close, peering closely at the dreamy depths of the fruit, and sniffed. There was a delicate sort of odor about them, like the dew that sometimes came after dos'lya during low summer or a thin bank of clouds drifting across the horizon.

And underneath that something stronger and more pungent. Like the heavy beat of your heart after a run, or the stink of sweat. But it wasn't coming from the berries themselves.

No this was from the sap leaking out of torn ends of the vines. It dripped down his hands and arms, drying into a crackly sort of wax that itched.

"Th-thank you."

He set the bundle in the notch of a nearby branch and tried to rub at the sap. It came away easily enough, but wherever it touched he felt the same prickly heat, not for long, but enough that he didn't think it smart to touch.

"Hmm hroom-hra."

With that Beore stood back up, again nearly throwing Soli off his perch, and set off into the depths of the forest again. There was a sort of peace to riding the tree, despite the uncertainty of the seating.

After the, what felt like hours, of running through the winds in blind terror it was remarkably to see the forest from such a vantage point; so far above everything, almost to the point of having is head amongst the canopy, breathing in fresh air and soaking in the warm light of Kistre as it filter down through the crown of leaves overhead. Somehow his booming voice did not seem to fright away the birds and other creatures of the woods. Nor did the crash and crunch of his heavy steps do more than kick up a little dust, it was a little hard to see from so high up, but it almost looked like the thick tree roots scattered across the forest floor moved out of the way of each of Beore's enormous feet.

They visited all sorts of strange places. Riverbanks where strange distant voices echoed off the water, tiny glades full of silvery flowers dripping with dew, groan and creaking copses of fiercely gnarled trees that seemed to beg hungrily for Soli's blood. At each Beore stopped and spoke in the same humming-chanting voice, listening awhile, before attending to some task. Then they moved on again.

Between each stop the tree would speak, sometimes it seemed to Soli and other times it seemed to himself. Or to things around then.

"Brother Sun, you are fierce today! Settle yourself or my friend Storm shall cover you!" He said once, lifting his head as if he were addressing Kiestre herself.

Though the name he gave her was all wrong. Almost a mockery.

But then, Beore must be a spirit (how else was a tree supposed to talk, other than through magic? And it wasn't as if there were people about to cast spells); able to sense each of the Daughter's much more keenly than any normal person except one of their chosen priests or priestesses.

So it had to be okay. For him at least. Soli was careful to be properly respectful towards the Patron of Mercy in his own thoughts.

Other times the tree would pause and look at a particular stream or hill, calling out, "Fine day Sister Stream," or, "Careful now Brother Hill, you are looking a little washed out."

Soli did not know if he was trying to talk to other spirits, ones that lived in the streams and hills and other things that Beore addressed or if the tree was merely out of his mind. He'd seen people on the streets that talked to themselves, been quietly ushered away from them by his mother and father. Read about characters driven mad by grief and loss and who needed saving or stopping by Captain Thellere.

Is it even possible for a spirit to lose their mind, he wondered.

They'd stopped by another river. Fast moving, cold spring water tumbling over rocks and the half submerged trunks of fallen trees covered in mist slick moss. Reeds and tall grasses lined the riverbank in a dense curtain.

With a heavy sigh that shook his upper branches Beore settled down beside the water and Soli had to grasp again at one of the nearby branches to avoid tumbling onto the slick rocks below. Despite his quick reactions one of his feet slipped out from under him. Soli dropped down heavily onto his backside and nearly slid sideways off. But he managed to catch himself again, on one of Beore's many branches.

A few smaller twigs broke under his grip.

"Thmm ba-rum... gently, gently, Little One. Only had to ask, to be let down."

One of his giant rooty hands appeared again and quickly grasped Soli around the waist, causing him to shout out, "Ahh!"

He had little time to think before he was being dragged away from his perch and then being set to the forest floor beside the talking tree's giant gnarled and sprawling legs.

"There! See, hroom-hra-hroom, quick as you like," Beore said.

A moment passed. Then another. With a start the tree swung towards Soli.

"Oh! Ba-rum! Suppose it was water you were needing, Little One, well then sink your roots deep and drink," he pointed to the river.

Soli hadn't really been feeling hirsty, but now that he was thinking about it, his mouth felt like a dozen balls of cotton stuffed together. He looked up at the sky. It felt like they'd been travelling for hours and hours through the forest and yet somehow it didn't seem like Kiestre had settled any lower in the sky at all.

Approaching the bank slowly he eyed the rushing water carefully. It was fairly gradual, so so long as he stayed close to the edge it should be okay to dip his hands in and drink. As he knelt beside the river Soli looked back at Beore.

"How long until the next Daughter rises?"

"Hmm-thmm? Daughter?"

In the stories spirits always knew the Daughters and hated them. At least the ones that the Captain actually met and talked to. Sometimes he mentioned other ones, smaller and less powerful, that he'd run into in the past that didn't, but the ones he fought always wanted to either kill the Daughters (though of course that was impossible) or at least trick some village or town into worshipping them instead.

How can he not know the Daughters, Soli wondered, is it because there are no people around?

Supposedly before Hytheion had set people on the world and given birth to the Daughters there'd only been a cold dark world, full of spirits and dosrowi and nothing else. If he really was beyond even the frontier, then maybe the spirits that lied around here had never heard of the Daughters.

"Um, the uh- the," he hesitated, looking up and gesturing somewhat helplessly, "The suns?"

"Oh! Hroom-harrah, no no Little One, we have many hills and valleys to go before night comes," night? "Much work to do too!"

"Work?" Do spirits have jobs? Bosses? The first he said out loud, astonishment in his voice, but the second Soli thought only to himself.

None of the stories Soli had ever heard or read made it seem like they did. They were always more like primal forces of the world or twisted reflections of people; the same sorts of wants and needs and flaws, but a little wrong. Or if not wrong, per se, then alien.

A spirit wanted food, not because it was hungry but because food was valuable, it desired love, no because it was natural but because it could grow strong on it.

"Of course work," scoffed Beore, planting one long arm beside Soli, "Awake, thmm-hmm, aren't I? Old Grandfather Beore cannot slack, now that his rest is ended. But, ah Little One," his voice took on a pitying sort of tone, "Hmm-hroom, I must correct you, for there is only the one s— "

Whatever he'd been about to say was cut off by a cry from the river, a high and chiming voice.

"Grandfather! Grandfather!"

Out of the water, in a spray of scintillating droplets came a woman, naked but for a thin gossamer shawl about the shoulders which caught the light of Kiestre like water foam and did less than nothing to hide her body. Hair like green-gold river grass cascaded down her head and onto her shoulders in ringlet waves and eyes like polished stones shimmered tearfully at the old tree.

She was as beautiful, a Daughter sent vision of perfection; with limber arms and smooth trackless skin so pale it was almost blue in places. Her stomach curved gently in a delicate pout. Little ripples spread across the turbulent course of the river as she ran with such impossible grace that tears pricked at the corner of Soli's eyes.

He could not bear to look away. But staring nearly hurt.

"Oh, Grandfather," she threw herself at Beore's feet, her hands leaving tiny puddles where they pressed at the ground, "I beg you, help me, help me."

"Ho-hroom? What's this then, little Sister?"

At first it didn't seem as if the woman (was she another spirit? Or a person? Soli had no idea) hadn't heard the talking tree at all as she simply kept weeping by his feet. On and on she went for minutes. Not that Beore seemed in any real hurry to find out what she needed help with, he only occasionally hummed in his deep crackling voice and waited.

Soli almost lost his patience and yelled at her to get on with it, but some silent voice in his head stopped him from doing more than frowning impatiently at the woman. Eventually, finally, she lifted her head and looked plaintively up at the tree.

With thick tears running down her face, she said, "Those awful, nasty, little thieves, took them. Right from my pool! Every last one of them; the white ones and the blue ones and the grey ones… oh and the green ones!"

"Took them? Stole them?" Beore leapt up onto his feet, bits of grass and dirt and small rocks went flying, and with a fierce glare he fixed his gaze on the girl, "Thmm ba-rum! Thieves! In my forest, who!?"

His sudden rage and activity seemed not to bother the woman. Another bout of tears overtook her.

"Bhokie, Grandfather. Just this morning."

He nodded and then sat down heavily, his anger just as suddenly gone, he let out a long thoughtful hum as he considered the woman. One hand scratching at where a barky chin might have been, if his face had been something more than another portion of his trunk.

"Of course, of course. Hmm-hroom, sticky fingers those. Ba-rum thmm, but if Grandfather is to help you, little Sister, what shall it profit him?"

Profit? Soli goggled, is he charging her for his help?

It made little sense to him and seemed more than a little cruel to make someone pay for your help, especially when you were related to them. Then again Soli didn't actually know if spirits had families like people did. Beore had called half the things they'd passed along the way 'Sister' or 'Brother' something or other and the girl was the first of those that was actually alive and responding.

Maybe… maybe this is just how spirits do things.

Certainly the watery woman did not seem at all phased by the tree's extortion. So far she hadn't seemed to note it at all actually.

"Anything, everything! My hair, a hundred morning's mist, two dozen winter drownings, three months of ice crackles! Name it and I- " suddenly her eyes alighted on Soli and her mouth snapped shut.

He stared back for a long stretched out moment

"Who's this?"

"Hmm-thmm?" Beore hummed, caught out, and followed the line of her gaze, "Oh, hroom, Little One, come closer."

He beckoned Soli closer, waving his thin rooty fingers. After a moment of hesitation he slowly got to his feet and walked closer to the tree and the woman, who peered at him with her big wet eyes like he was a particularly interesting bird.

When he was within a few steps Beore laid his enormous hand over his shoulder, covering his stained and torn shirt in smears and specks of dirt and bard.

"Not a sprite, he says. Smells of too much sun and wind," she sniffed the air and nodded, "Very talkative. Hrr-hroom, a wonderful sort of riddle for Old Grandfather Beore," with another of his hands he waved a single finger at the woman, "And don't go trying to bargain with the answer neither, it's already been bargained for."

Eyes wide and head tilted, the woman regarded Soli with fascination. She took a step closer. Then another. Lifting one hand she laid it on his head, feeling his hair and let out a soft gasp.

"Oh."

From up close she was even more beautiful.

Her eyes not just polished river stones, but glinting jewels of purest blue mountain ice flecked with splinters of rainbow. Face soft and open like a cloudless sky, drifting down into the sweeping curve of her neck like porcelain. Then the gentle slope of her shoulders, flexing with every delicate movement, arcing into the bend and twist of arms ending in hands and fingers that could pluck the flickering shadows out of a mountain lak..

She captivated him. Soli could not look away. He drank in every small movement and expression with an empty, endless thirst.

He wanted… he wanted… Soli wanted to have her embrace him, sooth his hurts, wash away all memory and regret. Carry him away to some secret place, dark and cool with the solitude of a dreamless sleep. He never wanted to leave her again.

Just the two of them forever and ever and ever. Until his bones slept in a dark pool—

"Hmm ba-rum! Enough of that Sister," Beore laughed from beside him.

Soli startled and shook himself into awareness. Whatever dream or hallucination or brief moment of madness had come over him had passed, overhead the sky was blue and clear and Kiestre shined down brightly. Straight ahead of him the river woman looked at him with nearly as much surprise and uncertainty as he himself felt.

Beside him Beore stood, his rooted feet planted into the soft soil of the riverbank and his face and body shaking with amusement. No hint of worry showed on his face, though Soli could hardly be sure he was reading the mass of bark and shadow correctly. Still, he relaxed.

*
*

Once again Soli found himself seated high up in the branches of Beore's boughs watching the forest pass them by. Though now the tree moved with an alacrity and speed which he had not endeavor with before, his thick rooted feet striding across the forest floor.

Now he was sure that the tree roots were moving out of his way in some act of strange spirit magic which saw them slither through the grass and dirt and underbrush like serpents. There was no other explanation for it. Before the camp back in Deylos Soli had never seen magic before and this was nothing like that, there was nothing obvious about it except for the sheer unnaturalness of roots moving on their own.

"What are w- where are we going?" he asked over the beat and drum of the tree's pace.

For a moment he thought that Beore had not heard him.

Then, "Hmm hrr-hroom, we go to recover what was stolen from the nyphi."

Which did little and less to answer his question.

After his brief… confusion, Beore and the woman had fallen into a brief but intense conversation which had involved more than a little of the hum-chanting that the tree had done earlier. There had also been reference to numerous locations which meant nothing to Soli; 'around the bend of the river where it cries out,' 'the stand of three,' and the 'standing stones where the sun sits heavy.'

Things like that. He still wasn't even sure what exactly had been stolen from the other spirit. Or what spirits could own that even could be stolen; were there spirit shoemakers and jewelers?

In the stories the things that spirits valued were always places — a sacred grove or a hidden cave, someplace full of magic and wonder and the ancient power of the world — or people, ones who worshipped and sacrificed to give them power. Things, objects, didn't hold much value to them.

Not like they did for people.

And he was sure that the river woman had been a spirit of some kind. She had to be.

"But," he started, grabbing tightly to one of the nearby branches, he didn't even really know what he wanted to ask, "Who stole from her and… what did they steal?"

"Who? Hmm-hroom, bhokie of course, as she said, nyphi such as her do not lie, thmm ba-rum, not to Old Grandfather Beore at least, no no."

Soli yelped as the tree ducked underneath the eave of one of the forest's true ancients, grabbing hold again of the branch he barely stopped himself from tumbling end over end. Nearby squirrel chittered in amusement. He wondered if this one had been there early that day, with the others.

He had to do a quick dance on his feet to keep his balance as Beore righted himself again and began the climb up a steep hill.

"An-and who exactly are the 'boki?"

Beore laughed, his leaves rustling and Soli struggling again to keep his footing as the branches beneath his feet danced and shook. Over the last hours and minutes he felt like something of an ornament.

"Hmm-hroom, sprites, prone to tricks and japes. Creatures of the dark and loamy earth who like to find, hmm-hrr, little trinkets and shiny bits for their lairs, yes."

Soli frowned; earthen things that liked to take things, "Like, moles?" Another long, loud laugh.

"Hrr-hroom, no. Bhokie do not dig through earth eating worms and beetles and such."

Cresting the hill they came briefly into a grassy clearing where the dense canopy of the forest receded to show the clear blue sky speckled with white and the press of the trees fell away to reveal a vast green sea that swept across the horizon, broke up only by the dark cleavages of meandering streams and rivers. Soli stared out across that expanse, searching for some sign of the end of the forest. He found none.

Just the endless sea of green rolling in gentle waves across hill and valley. Birds circled in the air and the wind brushed across the treetops in a slow pulse, like the breath of the world rushing out.

Beore paused at summit for a moment, turning his barky face to the sun and drinking in its warmth before plunging down again into the shadow dappled depths of the woods.

"Ah- hrrm-thmm, bhokie are creatures of disorder and change, just as the nyphi are of the stream and pond and river. Worming their ways through the skein of the world a bhokie seeks what is precious, to… hmm-hroom, disrupt the stifled and unfix the fixed. Necessary, but, thmm ba-rum, troublesome."

Barely moments since they'd been at the top of the hill and they were already deep within the shadows of the forest. And try as he might, as he had been since he found himself in this strange piece of the frontier, Soli had a difficult time tracking their course. He was reasonably sure that they were heading vaguely eastwards, but how far they'd gone or whether they'd been constant in the direction he couldn't say.

Trying to track Kiestre through the sky seemed a lost cause, no matter how or when he looked the Daughter seemed to barely move through the sky, as if after the dosrowi (or whatever they had been, but Soli was growing more and more thinking of them as dosrowi, it felt appropriate) had stolen those hours under Lythra's light the younger Daughter was trying to compensate. Soli didn't think that was how it was supposed to work. But he also didn't know any better. Cosmography wasn't taught until secondary school, two years away.

"So that woma- the 'nify' she was some sort of river spirit?"

"Yes, hmm hroom, the spirit of the river— " suddenly it was if Solis ears were drowned in silence, but only for a moment. He remembered the same thing happening back when he'd first met Beore.

" —which runs swift and cool from the hill of—"

Another soundless sound passed the tree's 'lips' " —to— " and Soli strained himself trying to hear. But nothing.

" —glade. She and her Sisters, thmm hmm, they tend the waters for the land and without them all you see would be a dry sunbaked wasteland under Brother Sun."

At that Beore looked up against at the thin rays of light peeking through the canopy with a fierce frown. It was strange, one moment he was pleased to bask in Kiestre's light and the next he spoke of it with a hint of mild annoyance. In one moment spoke of the nyphi as vital and necessary and then at a turn he haggled for a profit off the one back at the river.

Soli didn't understand it. Not any of it. He wanted to go home, to see his mom and dad again and his sisters and even his little brother.

But his mom was gone with his dad. Dead. Buried and lost amidst the rubble and flame and ruin of Deylos, swallowed by the shadow that had fallen over the city, and what might have happened to his sister Soli had no way of knowing; whether they were still alive, injured, lost, or worse. That burned in his throat, like sour stone crawling up into him.

The corners of his eyes prickled with heat and wetness. It was all Soli could do to swallow down that knot of grief.

Blinking against the threat of tears he searched vainly around them for something that might distract him from the dark clouds swirling about his thoughts. There was little around them though that qualified as distracting, unless one found shadows and trees and bushes fascinating. Not even a river or a pair of interesting rocks. Only the endless depths of the forest stretching on and on.

And the only sound was the gentle rustle of the wind through the leaves, a gentle susurrus that filled the air. Growing louder. Much louder in fact, until it was no longer a whisper but a roaring that wiped away all thought.

Suddenly the world burst into brightness again, the shadowed trees of the wood pulling away to reveal the stretch of a deep river, it's shores rocky and sun-drenched bending away beneath the spray and howl of a great waterfall. Little islets studded with water-worn plinths of rock divided the wide flow of the river into three just at the bend and turned the churning pool onto its gently rolling course. Sunlight stretched across the water in long gleaming streaks.

Beore forged ahead down the steep incline, undistracted by the scene before him, while Soli from his perch in the tree's upper boughs stared in wonderment, captivated by it. In moments they were walking beside the course of the river just beyond the line of trees crowding near its banks. Every step of the giant tree kicked up rocks and dirt and sand.

Gradually as they walked the green leaves gave way to golden yellow of the months of anticipation, when the creatures of forest and hill disappeared from the world, settling into burrow and nest and cave for their long naps before the wet spring came with its storms to revitalize the world.

Within the water he spied strange half translucent fish flashing back and forth, in and out of sun and shadow, as watchful raptor watched hungrily for one to come close enough to the surface to catch. This place, the entire forest, was alive in a way that seemed beyond the parks and forests back home. Even the one around his grandfather's estate which was meant for hunting.

For several long moments he watched the fish and the birds and the light glinting off the water.

At last he could no longer keep his voice quiet, and thus to avoid grief and heartache, Soli sought other questions, "Why do you call her- the sun, 'brother?' "

There was another moment of silence, or at least of quiet unbroken by voice, before Beore responded.

"Hmm hroom, and what else should I call him, thmm ba-rum?"

Soli didn't even know where to start with that; with the presumption of relation to divinity? He hadn't paid enough attention the few times his parents had taken him to Temple to know if Hytheion had made spirits too or just the Daughters themselves. Or calling one of the Daughters male? It seemed like it should be some sort of heresy, but Soli wasn't sure.

What if it isn't either, he wondered for a moment, Kiestre is the second youngest of the Daughters.

Beore hadn't used names with any of the other spirits so far, though they had to have them because well, Beore had one. Maybe spirits only respected age. Or power or something like that.

In any case it wasn't the time to be woolgathering, he decided, "Her name is Kiestre," Soli gestured towards the sky. Not that Beore could see him do that.

"Hrmm," he hummed, pausing where a small peninsula stuck out into the river and sent it shooting off back the way it had come. Three lonely trees perched at the edge of the jut of land like spears. He turned and plunged into the forest headlong.

"Little One, I do not know this Sister you speak of," already the forest was closing in around them again and the sunlit shores of the river were disappearing into shadow, "but Brother Sun has but one name, thmm ba-rum, which I shall not speak."

That didn't make sense. Nothing much had made sense since he'd fallen through the doorway to be fair, but there was something in particular that didn't make sense about what Beore was saying right then.

Does he think that it's the same sun rising and setting, Soli wondered, crossing all the dark Beyond in moments? No one could think that, it's impossible.

It was too simple to see. During some days of high and low summer you could even see two of the Daughters at once during dos'lya, if only for a brief moment. There was no way Beore wouldn't have noticed. So how could he ignore the evidence of his own eyes?

"What about- but, I mean, the other Daughters," he trailed off, unsure of what else to say.

They were deep into the woods again by then, the river completely gone from sight. Everything was cast in a warm golden shade by the light filtering through the canopy overhead. A restless silence fell over the forest, only dimly disrupted by distant bird calls and the soft brush of the wind through the trees.

He clung all the harder to Beore's branches, though in that moment he found little of comfort or security in the tree.

"Sister Moon and the stars? Hrmm-hroom, but daughters of whom? I suppose this is more of your riddle then, Little One, thmm ba-rum, and when I had not even begun to guess. Bat sort that."

Soli's heart beat heavily up into his throat. What's a moon and a star? He'd never heard the words and yet he knew they each meant something, for they were words, though he'd never heard them or read them in his life.

He opened his mouth to press the tree more, but the words would not come out; whatever questions swirled in his mind could not find the breath to escape or the wind to carry them. Snapping his mouth shut, Soli pressed tighter to Beore's trunk until he could feel the bark of the tree digging into his flesh through the thin fabric of his clothes.

And because he could not find the words Soli decided first to say nothing and then to think nothing too. Of the two the latter was less successful than the first.

Long minutes passed in silence, a blur of swirling thoughts even as the woods whipped past in another blur of white and gold streaked through with shadow. In moments it seemed as if hours had passed, interrupted only by the occasional outburst from Beore; highlighting some growth or fen or glade. 'Moonlit Pearls' he called a shock of tiny silvery-white flowers growing in the shadow of a large tree and 'Sallowbells' for the carpet of sickly yellow ones in the grass beyond. The bright crimson stand of bulbous mushrooms he called 'Devil's Rumps.'

More and more.

Little of it stuck inside Soli's head. At one point they passed a steaming pond Beore called the 'Clouddrip Mirror' and at another tumble or stone in a clearing he called the 'Temple of Bluebells.' Too there was an arching, coiling, growth of trees he called the 'Crossroad of Four Winds' which Beore insisted was of supreme magnificence. Portentous names for places that looked as common as any other they'd passed.

Eventually, finally, at last, they came to a large clearing sitting beside the quiet burbling offshoot of some river where Kiestre's light lay heavily over a sextet of tall stones — arranged in a semi circle that faced, open, to the east — covered in moss, lichen, and a soft dew which resisted the Daughter's rays. Perhaps the same as before, of the waterfall and rushing waters and sharp bends. Gentle green grasses spread between the stones in a dense carpet, though thin dirt paths wove between and around each standing stone until they joined in the center.

Stomping forward, Beore crossed over the grassy lawn and through the stones with hardly a pause. Here his feet did not kick up dirt or grass or even twigs, and they left no impression that Soli could see.

"Hrr-hroom, thmm ba-rum!" he roared, pacing around the edge of the semi-circle, "Out, out, out with you bhokie of the shadow and shade! Worm out of your little hidey-holes and crawling caves, for Old Grandfather Beore comes calling! Attend!"

With each word he stomped heavily with one foot or another, shaking the earth and stone and setting birds to flight from the trees. Their crying calls broke the silence of the air.

For a moment Soli thought nothing would happen, after the birds fled and their cries faded quiet returned.

But then from out of the grass, from under foot and out between the earth and stone came tiny squeaking, creaking voices like the chittering of squirrels except distorted and deranged. They were small. Not even half as tall as Soli himself. Not helped by the way they hunched and cowered before Beore, with their wide black eyes averted and darting back and forth between each other and the ground before them and only occasionally, briefly, catching the talking tree.

If any took even so much as notice of Soli they gave no sign of each.

Each was like a naked little baby, though stretched out and with skin grey as the darkest dos'lya (well, before the last) and with a giant floppy eared head that was twice as big as it needed to be. Needle teeth poked out from behind thin lips whenever they made any noise. Which was often. Those sounds consisted of hushed grunts and squeaks that might almost have been speech.

While the tree continued to pace the smaller spirits crowded about the stone semi-circle, even dashing underneath his great plodding steps when they emerged nearer the center or outside it. There were, maybe seventeen by Soli's count. Given not only the sharpness of their teeth but of their clawed hands as well, that seemed plenty enough to be dangerous to him and he was glad to be safely up amongst Beore's upper branches.

"Well now, hmm-hroom, is this all of you?"

All nodded in response to his question following him in posture as the tree rounded on them, various of them with considerable enthusiasm.

"Good, good. I have come lately from the river over yonder," gesturing with one hand back the way they'd come, "Where my Sister is very, thmm ba-rum, distraught over the loss of some things precious to her."

None of the spirits responded. At least not directly, but Soli thought he saw a few scattered ones flinch at Beore's words and shrink behind their fellows or nearby stones.

Whether he noticed as well or not the tree said nothing, merely letting the ensuing silence drag on. Behind it there was a sort of tension. Like a string being pulled taut so that it vibrated on its own.

Finally, one of the grimy looking little spirits stepped forward (after a little unfriendly nudging by the others nearby) and looked up cringingly at Beore.

"Th-that is as sad, Grandfather, that is. Very b-bad turn, for her, as you s-says… though we- I," it nodded to itself, standing slightly taller as some secret thought wound its way about behind those eyes. "Says that p-perhaps if the Sister h-had k-kept a closer watch on such things they would not have been lost. Hehe."

Several others of the spirits joined him in his laughter, thin little voices joining together into a chorus of rasping and squeaking.

"Hehe." "Hehe." "Hehe."

Beore said nothing and slowly the daughter died and whatever brief moment of triumph the leader of the bhokie had felt died and their cringed away gain from the tree, nervously eyeing it's legs and arms.

Finally, Beore said, "Hroom, perhaps. Perhaps."

At that the little things brightened again, but before their enthusiasm could carry them very far the tree continued.

"Alas, I have already haggled with my Sister to find and return her things, hmm-thmm, to her. And a deal struck cannot be broken."

More silence and a few reluctant nods.

"Though I have been a long way, after having been, hroom-hrr, awakened from my rest," he said, "So, I shall rest here a spell and, thmm-hrr, perhaps when I return I shall find my Sister's precious things."

It was not a question he asked. And neither, apparently was it one to the bhokie, who all as one immediately began to nod in agreement and slowly slink away even as the tree began to slowly settle itself to the ground. That was nearly that, but for one of the spirits which happened to look up at spy Soli.

For a moment they perhaps considered whether it was wise to call attention to Grandfather's apparent passenger; for small spirits such as they never knew what might invite the rather of their greaters cousins. Moreover, a deal of sorts had been struck. Any more might be considered insult or an attempt to wheedle out from beneath the weight of the exchange.

On the other hand, the deal's nature was particular. This unknown third party threatened that particular nature.

"P-pardon, Grandfather, but w-what about that one?" asked the bhokie at last, pointing on claw up at Soli.

Beore started, "Hmm?" he said, and opening his eyes followed the spirit's gesture, "Oh, Little One, rest your eyes as well. Just a touch, not long."

Soli looked between the tree and the spirits on the ground. No he did not trust them, they were thieves already and their teeth and claws looked vicious and nasty. Things didn't have claws or teeth like that for no reason.

But they also seemed more afraid of Beore than anything else so he finally relented and closed his eyes, settling down against the tree's trunk and clinging even tighter to its branches. He could feel the wind gently rocking the bough beneath him and hear it rustling the leaves all around. Sitting there he strained his ears, listening for any sound of claws to wood or even of metal or jewels or coins being piled atop one another.

He heard nothing.

In the end, that was that. Soli saw no more of the bhokie, but when he opened his eyes again there was a small pile of shiny... stuff in front of them. But aside from what might have been a nugget or two of gold or a pearl it was nothing so valuable that lay on the ground before them; instead it was polished stones of all colors (reds and green and striped pebbles of the sort that he might have found in the rivers and streams around his grandfather's estate) and shiny, sharp looking, bits of black rocky. Beore scooped them up in one rooted hand and then they were off back the way they'd come.

Spoiler: Author's Note

Back to our regular-ish schedule.

 

[Eival]

This is really good!

 

[CuttleFish2.0]

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[CuttleFish2.0]

Chapter 11

In the end, returning the river woman's collection of shiny junk proved nearly as anticlimactic as finding it in the first place; after careful inspection of the pile, she and Beore descended into a short, hushed, conversation which Soli could not make out. He doubted he would have understood anything of it even if he could have. Rather than trying Soli wandered a bit away, to the edge of the riverbank and decided to sate his long neglected thirst. He'd only had a sip before he'd been distracted by the woman, the nyphi, appearing to beg Beore's help.

Carefully edging himself between the curtain of grass and reeds, Soli squatted next to a rock and dipped his cupped hands into the chill flow of the water.

Bringing them up to his lips he drank quickly. It tasted like nothing he could describe, that single sip so many hours ago had been nothing like this; it was like swallowing the chill wind off a mountain top, or finding a shadowed room on a hot high summer day, but it was also more than that. Every swallow wiped away hours of aches and tension from clinging to Beore's branches and dissolved the subtle sting of fatigue clinging to his muscles. When he was finished Soli felt refreshed. Beyond refreshed.

It was nothing he could describe in words, as if the past hours, or days, had not happened. All his grief and terror were gone and he knew that things were going to be okay, that things were okay. He didn't worry about his sisters and brother, about where he was, how he was going to get home, the black shell people and their plans, or any of the other dozens worries he'd accumulated over the last who knew how long. Instead he could just, be.

For a moment. Then it passed.

His body still felt renewed but all the terror and uncertainty and grief crashed back down onto him like a crushing boulder plowing him straight into the ground. For several long minutes Soli sat by the waters edge staring out at nothing, until Beore rumbled up behind him.

"Come, Little One, hmm-hroom. Much more to see, many more hills and valleys to go."

Soli blink up at him dumbly, before remembering the 'deal' they'd struck for the tree to act as his guide to the forest. Out of it as well.

Without waiting for any other response Beore scooped him up off the ground and deposited him back onto his perch in his upper boughs amidst the warm light of Kiestre's steady presence. Then they were off again. Loping through a landscape of white and green that brushed by in an undulating slow-motion wave, like the wind-swept waves of a vast lake, they followed the course of the river for a time before Beore dove headlong into the dense press of the woods.

Gradually as they went on the shadows grew longer and longer, though light still filtered in through the canopy overhead, until the forest floor was as a whole new world. One cast in shade and darkness. He couldn't be sure if it was just a trick of the light or if he saw true, but Soli thought he saw movement in the shadows about them, long sinuous movements and skittering flashes that itched at something in his gut. After a while he thought it better to focus on the sky.

Soft wisps of cloud drifted across a blue horizon while the warm, constant, light of Kiestre shone down like a comforting beacon; wherever he was, whatever Beore said, every time Soli looked up and saw that familiar sun — fourth born Daughter, Patron of Mercy — he felt somehow connected. To his siblings, or his parents, or just to the world, he didn't know what. He couldn't say it was something he'd experienced before everything had gone insane, but then that could go for a lot of what he'd been through in the past few… days?

Has it really been days? It feels like it, he thought, but no; it was only just yesterday.

Eventually the shadows receded again and the forest floor bloomed into the familiar tangle of roots and grass and scattered stone. Beore reacted as little to the shift back into less ominous lightning as he had to the change in the first place, Soli didn't know what to make of it, but he supposed that it simply must be below the tree-spirit's notice.

On and on they went carving an ambling, wandering, path through the woods.

Sometimes the trees pressed in so close he wondered how they made any progress at all and other times forest gave way almost to meadows, but never quite. From his perch Soli saw much, other clearings full of standing stones (sometimes more and sometimes less than at the first) or ponds and rivers sparkling under Kiestre's light. He glimpsed bhokies and nyphies and other things he couldn't even name; flashes of glittering wings and brilliant scarlet amidst the play of white and green and gold and blue.

Twice they stopped.

Each time Beore pulled to a halt at some unheard signal or hidden sign.

First the tree ducked beneath a thick twist of branches where the boughs of nine separate trees had grown together over long centuries, crawling brief across the forest floor (Soli had to wedge himself in between a pair of older branches to avoid falling crashing down), before standing back up into a wide clearing. There were standings stones everywhere, of all shapes and sizes. Or at least at first Soli thought they were standing stones. After he got a second and third look he could immediately tell that these had once been part of something more organized than a simple arrangement of stones. Something like a building.

Some of them were simply too flat, with too many sharp, even, angles to be natural. Walls. Columns with nearly square footing. What might have once been half of the arch of a doorway.

Others had too much detail. Nothing that could quite be made sense of, but plenty that almost seemed to form some sort of image or pattern. All too distorted by time and wear; and yet, still perceptible.

Stone covered the ground too. A shattered floor across which once feet would have strode confidently and surely.

He could not help but wonder who had lived here. What sort of people would they have been and how had they gotten so far out into the frontier. Maybe they'd been criminals fleeing from some terrible crime far beyond where the justices of their city or rangers could find them, or maybe they'd been some secretive cult, worshipping a spirit, and they'd run away from everything to look for a place to practice their strange rituals in peace. It was kind of hard to tell just from some bits of stone that might have been a home once.

Or just as easily something else. Maybe a hidden base for some ultra-secret ranger project? Soli's head swirled with the possibilities.

He would never find out.

Barely moments after he'd brought them into the clearing Beore gave a loud sniff, like he's just smelled a pile of rotting garbage, and charged through. One of his legs smashed through a bit of wall. Chips and stone shards peppered the surrounding debris.

"Thmm ba-rum," muttered the tree under his breath "... foul stench, still clinging to the— "

Whatever else the spirit said was lost to Soli.

They went on. And again the world turned into a blur of white and green, running towards gold, as the forest around them shifted across seasons gradually.

For quite awhile Beore said little or nothing and Soli had to content himself with what he could discern of the passing sights using only his own two eyes. He saw plenty. An endless stretching horizon of tree tops and thin clouds. Rivers and streams and ponds. Narrow valleys and vast gorges. Mostly at a distance, glimpsed through the trunk and bough and leaf.

Too he saw squirrels, songbirds, shuffling little forest pigs,and hopping bunnies. It was shocking how alive the forest seemed from the height of his perch, even at the speed Beore travelled, and not just alive but unbothered by the presence of the tree-spirit. Soli himself was too small to be noticed. Or at least that was his assumption.

Perhaps next to the tree he was too unimportant. Every other spirit or creature they'd encountered so far had only ever seemed to notice him as an afterthought, perhaps a concern, but certainly not the main draw of attention.

After what again felt like many hours of travel they reached another clearing, though this one was no ruin. Instead it was filled with soft grasses and bright little flowers that nearly sparkled in the light, it was cool despite the press of Kiestre above, the sort of misty coolness that settles damply on shoulders and in hair. Sprinkling laughter rose from out of the grasses. And then tiny little people too.

"Grandfather! Grandfather! Grandfather!"

They cried out, surging from the grasses in a blurred wave of greens and pinks and blues and yellows. From his perch he couldn't quite tell, but they either were themselves green or wore clothes of green and had shocks of tiny spiky hair in all the other colors almost like the hummingbirds he'd seen drawings of the marshes and fens near Ciembrelos.

Dancing around Beore's face they talked all at once in high fluting little voices that carried despite their size, congratulating him on this and that and asking him about a hundred different little things that Soli had no idea about. At all.

"... and when we was cleaning 'em— "

"Just like you asked!"

They left trails of dust or shimmering mist in the air as they danced about the tree.

"But we had to use evening dew, and not the morning sort, 'cause some thick headed dryaol keeps coming through to gobble it all up."

" —these namehot grykie turn up, and start making trouble for us."

The rest of the tiny colored people nodded in unison. One or two were close enough that Soli could actually make out that they had actually had tiny little wings, like a beetle's wings but colored like the windows of the temples.

Some of them were carrying little bark shields and twig spears.

"Hmm-hroom, trouble you say?"

Beore went back and forth with the little flying people for several minutes; discussing whatever it was that the tree spirit had wanted them to clean as well as whatever 'grykie' were. Occasionally one or two of the spirits (Soli assumed that was what they were; he was close to assuming everything that wasn't obviously a plant or an animal was a spirit) would throw a look his way, but none ever commented on his presence. Or indicated they had really noticed him beyond that.

That seemed to be something of a running theme, where things either didn't notice Soli or made a point of deliberately not noticing him. He wasn't exactly bothered by it. Maybe if they'd been people, as in actual people, instead of spirit-people or whatever they were it would have bothered him.

But they weren't. And it didn't.

Eventually the conversation between the spirits came to an end and the smaller ones drifted back down into the tall grass around Beore's feet, sinking down and disappearing from sight just as easily as they'd first appeared. Without comment the tree started on his way again, crossing the smaller clearing in moments and plunging back into the woods with abandon.

Soli jostled in his perch amidst the tree-spirit's branches in time with his thoughts.

There was so much strange about wherever he was and he was starting to wonder if it was because he was so far away from the settled lands of the Homeland or if the whole world was like this and he'd simply never noticed. Had there been water-girl spirits in the ponds out behind the school gymnasium? Little bhokie hiding behind his building's trash dumpsters?

What was his world really like? Maybe the Captain Thellere stories weren't really as far fetched as he'd imagined them to be.

He was taken out of his musings by several overhead cries.

"Raagh!"

"Aaah!"

A pair of blue-black shapes leapt down out of the golden boughs of a nearby tree, tiny thin blades screaming like they were falling into the Beyond. Soli flinched away even as they pricked at his face and neck. Their thin needle-like weapons drew hot, thin lines of pain across his skin.

He yelped and turned away and still they kept on attacking.

Scrambling for nearby branches Soli tried to get away from the vicious little things but they kept on coming, never doing much damage but still leaving him harried on all sides.

"THMM BA-RUM! WHO ASSAULTS ME AND MINE!"

Beore's voice boomed out like frozen wood.

Instantly the smaller, whatever they were, froze in midair. Soli continued his efforts to get away long enough to get a few branches between him and his attackers before he dared turn around and face them.

They were bigger than he expected, blue skinned where the other ones had been a pale green, and instead of normal people-legs their lower halves were that of a cricket or perhaps some other large insects. Each had a pair of antennae sprouting out from their foreheads, swept back like hair. And their wings were not colorful but instead the simple translucence of a normal insect's wings with a hard covering of mottled chitin that flipped up while in flight.

One of Beore's enormous, rooty, hands shot out and wrapped both attackers up into its grip.

"Eek!" "Waah!"

"Naughty, naughty," both struggled frantically against his grip as the tree brought them down closer to his face, "Thmm-hmm hroom, two naughty grykie do I see… and why do they attack?"

For a second the two half-bug people continued struggling against his hold, and Beore let them. Silently watching their efforts until both gave up in dejected defeat.

Another moment passed, then finally one of the two spoke up, "We was only defending ourselves!"

"Yes, yes, yes, just defending us!"

"Oh? And the honor of Grandfather Beore was not enough to beg recompense from me first? How far have I fallen that you will not trust me?"

Even at a distance Soli could make out the black eyes of the two widening in either fear or shock. Perhaps both.

Part of him was satisfied to see it as he nursed the (light, he had to admit) wounds they'd dealt him.

"No!"

"O-of course not, Grandfather!"

"Hmm-hroom, then what? To what shall I attribute your actions?"

Both bug-people paused, hesitant to open their mouths and make further mistakes. For several long moments the tree let them tew in their uncertainty and fear without saying anything or offering any escape. Soli could sense though that more than a little of the whole situation was play acting, on both sides, not that he thought there weren't actual consequences at stake.

It was just that both Beore and the bugs seemed to fall very easily into sorts of 'roles.' He'd actually noticed it back with the bhokie and nyphi though he hadn't quite understood what he was seeing. Not that he could explain it, even to himself.

"Perhaps we shall call it, hmm-hroom, a case of mistaken identity?"

Instantly the two were frantically nodding their heads in agreement.

"Yes, Grandfather, yes! Of course!"

"Oh, y-yes, we only th-thought we saw some of those cloud-headed sprikie in your… er, ah- " the grykie looked back and forth between Soli and Beore "Ever so glorious, eves."

"Hmm," Beore hummed and then nodded thoughtfully, "Good. But, now see, thmm ba-rum, you have injured Little One most terribly. How shall we resolve this?"

Soli did not particularly want anything more to do with these little bugs. He would be very happy if they simply left, never to return. But something told him, deep down in his gut, that saying so out loud would not be the right thing.down deep inside him told him that would not be good to say aloud. He snapped shut his mouth, which had begun to open, and stared down at the two bug peoples even as they frantically looked between themselves for an answer.

There followed a moment of furious whispering and squeaking before the second of the two, the one who had spoken the least so far, piped back up.

"A- ah, a gift! Yes, yes. Something clever and shiny and fitting for the illustrious— "

Pausing, uncertain, they glanced back and forth again between Beore and Soli.

" —cousin?"

"Hroom-hmm. Very well," said the tree, "A gift. Clever and bright. Present it then."

More whispering.

"Of course, Grandfather," said one of the bug people, "But, ah- if you would release us?"

Beore looked down at his hand, still gripping the two grykie firmly, and let out a loud booming laugh. Quickly he let them go.

"Oh ho, yes! Forgive your Grandfather, the long seasons sometimes steal his sense. Well, go on then."

Almost before the words had even left his mouth the two were gone, zippin off back into the over of the canopy overhead. Soli could only just follow their progress by the shifting of leaves. Maybe. It was hard to distinguish between what was them and what was just the wind.

He wondered if they would even return or if the tree spirit had been tricked. They'd seemed properly frightened of Beore so Soli doubted more than a little that they would simply try and run, after all even if he was going to leave the tree could surely find them later and punish them if he wanted. If he wanted.

Soli didn't actually see much reason he would want to, but pride motivated more than the young boy had ever known; whether it was the pride of people or spirits.

Just a few seconds later the two tiny half-bug people fell out of the leaves again, holding between them a sheet of woven grass that bulged with some strange shape. He couldn't quite make sense of it. Not through the thick weave of the sheet. At once long, thin, and delicate it nonetheless also had a sort of bulbous curvature, shifting the grass from sharp protruding angles to rolling bends that opened the fibers wide enough to admit the thinnest slivers of brown coloring through.

As they moved closer Soli smelled the faint whiff of forest. Not a forest like the one they were in now, but more like those surrounding his grandfather's estate back home near Deylos. Pine. With the scent of a passing rainstorm. Sharp and sweet and clean.

They did not go to Beore, instead struggling slowly in his direction with their cargo carefully suspended between them like a precious seed.

Finally they stopped in front of him. Neither said anything for several seconds until the one on his left hissed and tugged at his end of the woven sheet, the other jolted at and looked over at his companion with wide eyes before following the motion of the other's head towards Soli.

"Ah, yes," he said, pausing again, glancing down towards Beore, who was paying little attention to the entire affair, and then looking back up at Soli, "Illustrious… Li-little One, Thykker and Brykker," he motioned first to himself and then his companion, "Offer our most deepest, most sincerest sorries for our poor eyesight and poorer judgement."

They floated closer and looked significantly down at Soli's hands.

Looking between them he frowned, uncertain of what to do. Certainly they looked and sounded apologetic but he had no idea if that was just because they were afraid of Beore or if they actually understood that it had been wrong to attack him.

Maybe it didn't matter. He wasn't going to be staying here, wasn't going to be trying to make friends or allies or anything like that, so it would hardly matter what they actually thought about him or whether they had actually learned any sort of lesson. As soon as found any actual people Soli was leaving this forest as far behind as he could, he would find out whatever he could about his siblings, maybe go stay with one of his uncles, and never come back to or do more than think in passing about this place.

With that in mind he stuck out his hands, cupped, beneath the bulk of the cargo the two grykie were holding between them and waited.

Just for a second.

It took a little negotiation and maneuvering for the two to find a way to deposit their apology gift into his hands without letting it fall. As soon as it started tumbling over the side he could see why. In fact it wasn't exactly a single 'thing' but instead a pair of objects.

Made from a dark wood and polished to nearly a sheet; one was a sort of hooked, double ended stick with strange yellowy-white hairs going between the two hooks, while the other was like a lute but stretched and squashed and pulled in all sorts of strange directions. Fewer strings too. Both were tiny, fitting neatly into the palms of his hands with a clatted and a soft twang.

Even if he'd known how there was no way he could play it. Soli had never done more than touch his father's lute idly to see what sort of sounds it made and this was clearly sized for a bug-person rather than a person-person.

He stared at the gift for a couple seconds more, then slowly opened his mouth and said, "T-thank you."

There really wasn't anything else he could say.

Neither responded, just staring blankly at him for several long seconds and then glancing down towards Beore who still hadn't given any indication of paying attention, though Soli doubted he wouldn't be.

Finally they nodded.

"Yes. Good. Okay, we go now."

Soli didn't say anything to that. They didn't go.

After another awkward moment of silence he gave a short choppy nod that saw them off immediately. In an instant they disappeared into the canopy, their path obscured by the gentle breeze rustling the leaves.

Looking at the instrument in his hands Soli wondered what exactly he was meant to do with it.

"I- how am I supposed to carry this?"

Beore finally stirred at his words, even the slight movement setting off his own crown of leaves rustling even harder than those above. There was no way he could turn to look directly at Soli, but then maybe he didn't need to.

He had no idea how exactly spirits worked.

"Hrmm ba-rum, yes you are poorly prepared for travel, tricky. Something to take care of in the future, if you ever plan to lose yourself again."

Given that literally no moment of this entire experience had been any plan of his, he wasn't very appreciative of that bit of advice. But he needed Beore and talking back would hardly be a smart move.

He can say whatever he wants, so long as he gets me out of this crazy forest, Soli told himself, that's all that matters.

While he was thinking that though Beore was rooting around in the ground. Or perhaps in the roots of his feet. A second later the tree's hand came up with something green and soft look which he promptly offered to Soli by dint of reaching up and dropping it in his lap. Startled, he stared at the piece of folded moss until he realized it was a bag.

A bag of a moss with a vine cord and tiny pebble tassels. Pulling open the mouth of the bag he gently slipped in the strange tiny instrument before cinching it closed again and tying it to the belt loops of his pants. He barely felt it hanging off him.

Just seconds after he had the bag tied Beore took off back towards the woods at pace. It was lucky that Soli was already securely ensconced tightly in the nook between two of the tree's branches because otherwise he probably would have been thrown from his perch. As it was he wasn't.

That didn't make the sudden movement exactly pleasant though. Being smashed between two giant branches rarely was.

He briefly considered giving the tree a piece of his mind about it, or at least trying to remind him that Soli was a lot less durable than himself, but then he thought better of it. Again, he needed the spirit a lot more than Beore needed him (not at all, so far as Soli could tell), and what was more, thinking on most of the other spirits they'd run into in the forest; Soli wasn't actually sure the tree-spirit would quite grasp the issue without a lot of explaining. Explaining that he didn't want to do. What, after all, was a fall to something that could fly.

So instead he simply kept his mouth shut and resolved to always have a tight grip on something while he was riding around in Beore's branches.

On and on the two dove into the depths of the woods, driving past yet more glades and rivers, as Kiestre shone down on them with all the blazing heat of a high summer midday despite the hours that had passed.

He was sure now that something strange was going on. It had to have been at least a couple of hours since the woman — or spirit, or whatever — from the river and that had been hours after Soli had first found himself in this place. At no point during any of his travels had he lost sight of the heavens enough to think that dos'lya had come and gone. Kiestre had been high in the sky when he landed and remained so the entire time.

Maybe it was just a thing that happened in the far frontiers. Some trick of cosmology that made it so days lasted even longer. He'd never heard anything like that before. Then again he'd never really paid that much attention during the few cosmology lessons he'd actually had.

It could be something to do with all the spirits out here? He thought, then, other weird stuff is supposed to happen around spirits, and I haven't left Beore's side in hours.

He couldn't rule it out at least. It also wasn't something he could prove, the tree-spirit was his only source of information and security so far. Whatever weird stuff was going on with the heavens he would take it over that long darkness that had fallen over Deylos in the hours before he ran through that portal.

And just as the thought flashed through his mind he found the light weaving its way through the trees and branches of the woods fading. Dimming to a pre-dos'lya gentleness with alarming rapidity.

Shit, he thought, it's happening again.

His mouth went dry and his heart leapt up into his throat with a hot urgency. Looking up he searched the sky and found Kiestre sinking rapidly towards the horizon, like she was falling, a tinge of red colored the edges of the sky; the color of blood. It was happening again, he knew it in his heart.

All his life Soli had known the course of heavens with the certainty of an entire world, that day to day each Daughter rose and set one after another without fail or hesitation or interruption (with dos'lya between, sometimes longer or shorter, depending on the season) until but a few hours ago and now he knew with the same certainty that this quickening darkness could only mean one thing. That whatever reprieve his journey through the portal had gained him from the end of the world, it was catching up to him and the black shelled people with it. Soli didn't know if it was something they had done to bring the end of the world or if they were simply fleeing from it too, but he did know that they were dangerous.

More dangerous than Beore. Whatever great power and magic the tree-spirit held it couldn't possibly be anything next to the strength it took to fashion those flying ships he'd seen or the magic he'd seen them wield against innocent people. Helpless people.

They needed to run. And never stop running.

"Hurry!" he screamed, "We have to get out of here!"

Beore said nothing, just kept to his pace. Though the woods raced by in a near constant blur Soli was absolutely certain it was not nearly fast enough.He'd seen their ships screaming through the air, faster than hawks, felt them set the whole world trembling with their passage.

Feeling his pulse racing Soli launched himself out of the perch he'd found and started climbing hand over foot down the branches of the tree. He moved recklessly, desperately, dropping from one limb to another almost without care.

In just a handful of drops his hands were scraped raw and tingly, bloody streaks smearing over bark with every subsequent move. He made it close to Beore's face in seconds and clung to the side of the tree, pressing flat against his trunk. As if awakened from a doze the spirit's eyes went wide and his booming voice crackled out.

"Oh ho Little One! What a nimble climber you are."

Soli edged close to that face, nearly as big as himself, and searched for the right words. Part of him wanted to correct the spirit, he'd never been a good climber and what he'd just done had been more akin to falling anyways.

He didn't.

"Beore! Grandfather! We need to pick up the pace before they find us! Get ahead of the dos'lya, outrun the darkness!"

"Hmm-thmm, but it is the approach of night towards which we go, Little One. Do you not wish to leave the woods, was that not the help you pleaded from Grandfather?"

What?

Soli froze, they were running towards the darkness? Had he understood that correctly? They were running in the same direction that Kiestre was settling, that should have meant they were running towards the light.

Maybe it was a spirit thing.

"It- do we have to," he hesitated, "Run towards it to get out of the woods?"

"How else, hrrm ba-rum, one cannot leave them but under the light of the Sisters Moon."

That was not a comforting answer. Not only because he very much didn't want to be going towards any darkness of any sort, but also because he'd never heard of this 'moon' in his entire life.

Was it some strange spirit, a riva to the Daughters? That would be very concerning, Soli didn't want to involve himself with anything that was in conflict with them.

"But who's searching eyes do you fear, thmm-hrmm, Little One. Not the grykie, surely, nor, hmm-hrrm, the bhokie. Is it the gremi that frighten you? Or the oahri? Neither should concern you," and somehow, midrun the tree puffed himself up, standing prouder and straighter at the next words, "For it has been many long turns of the seasons since Grandfather Beore drove them from his woods!"

Again Soli had no idea what he was talking about. Gremi and oahri were as unfamiliar to him as all the other names he'd given to the other spirits they'd met throughout the day, with the added difficulty of having no example to work off of.

More, if the spirit had driven them out of the woods and now they were heading out of those same woods; were they headed straight for those same things? Another uncomfortable thought. Soli's brain was working in overdrive trying to figure out what he should do.

He could jump for it, maybe head off on his own. But then he would be stuck in the forest all over again without a guide and possibly having made an enemy. Alone and lost had to be better than dead at the hands of the black shell people or freezing in endless darkness. Right?

Of course Beore hadn't even reacted to his mention of possibly being chased, except to assure him he'd driven off some sort of threat before; long ago in fact, whatever the gremi and oahri were. If he'd driven them off rather than bending them to his rule, then that had to mean they were powerful, right, or maybe just that evil. Soli shuddered. Both possibilities were not very reassuring.

Every time he felt like he was starting to get even a little bit of a handle on things, everything just seemed to turn on its head. First the tall shimmering spires of Deylos has started falling out of the sky. Then the city had swallowed up his parents. After that the strange otherworldliness of the black shell people, followed shortly after by a consuming darkness.

Then the attack on the camp and the portal and… everything about this entire place. He felt stretched thin already and Soli still had no idea when it would end, if it ever would, there was no sign of an end to all of this. Nothing to suggest that he would find even the edges of settled frontier at the end of this latest leg of his trials.

Already Kiestre had sunk close enough to the horizon to touch and the sky overhead had turned to a dark, deep blue on purple with edges tinged the faintest orange turning towards red, in mere moments Soli felt sure she would have disappeared over the horizon and that deep darkness would return to swallow the world in shadow. There was a sort of finally to the sky that Soli felt settling on his skin. A cold blanket of bitter endings.

"But what is this dos-lia you speak of? Grandfather has never heard it spoken of before."

Soli answered almost without thinking, the rote answer emerging from out of his mouth, "Dos'lya is the time between one Daughter sets and the next rises, when the world is cast into gentled reflection of the terrible epoch before Hytheion gave life to his Daughters and his people."

There was a moment of silence, and then another.

"Thmm-hmm, it is then simply another word for night, curious. Hmm-hroom, this Hytheion then, what manner of spirit is he?"

"Hytheion is," Soli said, but when he tried to go one he found he couldn't,"He— "

It wasn't just that his family had never been terribly religious and thus that he wasn't actually sure he would get the explanation right if he tried to give it. There was also a part of him that didn't really want to tell Beore about all this, that felt almost a little frightened of what would happen if he did; would the tree-spirit be offended and maybe abandone him, recognize the truth? He didn't know what to expect.

"He's a creator," he finally said. It was better to leave things simple. Then after a moment, he went on, "... but, what do you mean, 'another word for night?' What is 'night', exactly?"

"What is night? Hmm-thmm, might as well ask what day is or what winter and summer and spring and fall are! Ask me, thmm-hroom, what life is! Ohoho, Little One, but you do not ask the easy questions."

He did want to ask what all of those were. Well, not all of them; he knew what summer and spring and life were, though maybe not in the way that Beore had taken his question, which seemed distinctly more philosophical.

"No, I mean, what is night? I've never heard the word," though somehow he understood that it was a word in common elvish, which they had been speaking in the entire time (minus a few occasions), it was not one he'd ever heard.

There was a long moment of silence on Beore's end and Soli almost thought the tree-spirit had perhaps not heard his question, but then he spoke.

"Night… " there was something different to his voice, something about his pacing and tone that said he was suddenly very focused on the moment, "Is the time when Brother Sun passes over the horizon of the world and Sisters Moon rise, the hours of darkness during which most life sleeps and dreams and the world is refreshed."

Hours? He thought, shocked.

"Hours?"

Spoiler: Author's Note

Part of me feels this bit drags a little, but I'm not sure what to cut/rework or how so here it is.

Please, comment and feedback welcome! Wanted even.

 

[CuttleFish2.0]

Chapter 12

Another hour passed.

Kiestre touched the horizon and kept going, first brightening the western horizon like the bonfire, licks of divine light stretching across in spears of gold-white that gradually dimmed towards a burnt orange fringe clinging to the horizon. Over long minutes the Daughter dropped below the line of the world. For an instant before she disappeared there was another flare of brilliance but in seconds that too was gone.

Thus was left only a gradually darkening sky slipping from a paling blue-purple to a shade so dark it was almost black, speckled with flecks of faintly gleaming silver.

For long moments Soli waited for the answering glow from the eastern horizon. Beore had to be mistaken; even though spirits usually knew what they were talking about when Captain Thellere talked to them.

He was wrong. Confused. Maye hours mean different things to spirits, or trees, or whatever.

The wait stretched on so long in fact that he almost despaired. Almost gave in to the other voices in his head telling him the tree-spirit wasn't lying, or mistaken, or anything like that.

But then the eastern horizon began to brighten. Ever so slightly.

He let out a long sigh of relief and relaxed against the bark of Beore's trunk, settling deeper into the crotch he'd settled into after climbing back up into the tree's boughs.

Except. It wasn't the warm, fiery glow that grew on the horizon; this was a paler, more silvery, watery light. Long rays of gold did not stretch across the sky, but pale fingers milky-white. And what slowly emerged over the horizon was the same.

Smaller than any of the Daughters, it was rough and textured like one of those ancient ruins they took Soli and his classmates to every Tippingday; the ones from before the Integration, when people were barely civilized. There were darker spots, almost like stains, and places where it seemed someone might have taken a bite out of it. It had a cold, distant feeling to it. Like someone had molded it out of fresh clay and just hung it in the sky.

Behind it came another, smaller but smoother looking, as if someone had taken the first and polished it. It also had a faint patina of red dusted across its surface. Like someone had mixed a handful of dry red paint in with a whole pale of white chalk.

Is that- when they- no.

He couldn't even think the words. They led to impossible thoughts. Blasphemous ones Soli was pretty sure.

Daughters weren't flesh and blood like people, they didn't have bones. Have corpses.

He moaned, "No. No, no… "

Soli stared and stared and stared for what felt like his entire life sitting beneath the dark lifeless sky gleaming with frozen raindrops. Long enough that the two false Daughters — Corpse Daughters — had climbed high into the sky, one following after the other like a handmaiden or an attendant, their pale mock light painting the landscape in strange streaks of color. He watched them unseeingly. Unceasingly.

Just when he'd begun to make some sort of sense of them (maybe the black shell people had trapped the Daughters in some sort of rocky cage?) there came another, even smaller than the other two. Hours or seconds or minutes, he didn't not know how long lay between the first two and the last.

It drifted unsteadily across the sky, like someone drunk on wine, drifting back and forth in an erratic path that sometimes seemed to speed up and slow down. Pale blue-green like a lake, it crawled slowly across the sky after the two others. It's surface was even more scratched and potchmarked than the first.

It was strange, and lifeless looking. Beautiful, but like a knife or bone could be beautiful. Deadly.

All three of them were like that, these strange bodies, like nothing Soli had ever seen in his life; silent and frightening for their sheer alienness. He almost expected them to start falling down to the earth at any moment. It was one thing for the Daughters to fly across the sky. These were something else.

Each Daughter was part of the heavens, an expression of Hytheion's prime act of creation and of the fundamental truths of the world, all heat and burnin divinity set in the sky, while what he looked at now were just cold, lifeless rocks. And yet Soli could not tear his eyes away. Something about the three strange bodies flying overhead called to him deeply, sinking in through his skin and muscle until it reached his bones. Like standing on the roof and getting a chill off the wind.

Yet more hours passed. They strode across glades utterly lit up by the pale light flowing off the strange heavenly bodies, over rivers glinting with trapped slivers of the same light, past ruins and circles of standings stones aglow with it.

Soli ignored it all, his eyes transfixed.

He almost imagined he heard the workings of some vast clock as he stared; gears of weather and season grinding across time and space with the unerring precision of the finest craftwork, the ticking of its hands the slow procession of instants into seconds into months into eons. There was something hidden from him. Shadowed shapes playing across some unseen curtain just beyond his vision. Wind blew and leaves rustled. Owls hooted in the distance.

Something rustled into the grass and bushes and dirt below and with every step the tree-spirit took a low thump echoed across the forest. And it was all part of something. Soli could almost see it. Could almost grasp it.

"I have it, hmm-hroom," boomed out Beore.

And whatever insight (or hallucination, a part of him needled) Soli had been about to have slipped from his grasp like a rush of cold spring water.

He blinked, looking down at where the tree's face was, half shrouded in darkness and half cast in strange silvery-white from the pale rays falling from overhead.

"Have what?"

"Thmm-hmm, it was a tricksy riddle; no sprite ye are, " Beore said, his voice a groaning, creaking, drone, "Coming from a place of many suns, unfamiliar to these woods, merciful… "

Soli has truly no idea what the tree-spirit is even talking about. He starts to making his way down from his perch, more slowly that the previous time, careful not to scrape his still healing hands while around him the forest starts to thin.

Not quickly and not much.

"... not one of the geimrach, nor of the hafrach, though you smell so much of sun as to burn, thmm-hrrm, and no taste of any of the seirach an dith about you… "

More unfamiliar words, with unfamiliar meanings.

Carefully reaching with his foot for the stump of a broken branch he caught it with his toes, gradually working his foot onto firmer footing before he wrapped his other leg around the trunk towards another branch and shimmied down until he was practically wrapped around the spirit's trunk. Looking around he spied a much more secure placing just another 'level' down, close enough to Beore's face to be her without issue.

Long rays of pale light played across the thin trunks of the forest around them, seeping through the golden leaves, and making them shine almost like burnished silver. Long grass grew between each tree in widening strips. Tiny dewey droplets shimmered on green blades.

Something far off cried out. A reverberating staccato trumpeting that shoot the tree tops and rattled Soli's thoughts.

"... and so, hmm ba-rum, I pondered that you might be a poor lost jotelki, of clouds or mountains perhaps, but I never smelled the imil-blood about you and so I— "

"What, by all five heavens, are you talking about?" Soli asked, raising his voice nearly to a shout.

It was all too much. All the names and words and terms, none of which made a lick of sense and none of which Beore even paused to explain.

He didn't know what any of it meant and he was tired of being dragged around in circles by the tree-spirit, receiving only more questions every time he tried to get a handle on even the slightest bit of what was going on. It was maddening. A kind of slow insanity that crawled in behind ones eyes and grew and grew until it could not be contained

Beore seemed not to notice his outburst, his enormous rooted legs carrying them through the increasingly sparse press of trees.

" —began to ponder what else you could be, and then, hmm-thmm, I knew it, the answer; you, Little One, are ochelfeni— "

Suddenly the trees part, like curtains being pulled apart, to reveal rolling plains of long feather grass swaying under the light of the three strange bodies flying overhead. Here and there Soli saw scattered trees standing atop rolling hills, far off in the distance, split by winding rivers of grass swaying silvery under gentle breezes. Dark smudges that looked like other forests lay scattered towards the horizon and in the far distance he saw snow capped peaks frame against the dark sky.

Immediately ahead of them the ground fell away in a steep hill that swept out to join the plains and hills all around. A wave of grass rushed up the hill, stirred up by a gust of wind.

Beore charged out towards the lip of the hill, saying," —servant to dead and, thmm ba-rum, deathless masters. Sliver of the- "

Soli heard nothing more though because the tree-spirit ground to a sudden halt and his hands, weak and sweat slick from the sudden pounding of his heart, slipped loose from his paper bark. A chunk came away in his hands. He saw the world spin, dark glittering sky exchanging with the pale silvery sea of grass in a rapid tumble.

He hit the ground, rebounded into the air, and fell tumbling again.

Overhead the three moons coldly mocked his wild aimless attempts to grip something, anything, in order to arrest his fall and the twinkling lights scattered across the black sky watched him pitilessly. Again he struck the ground and was set into the air.

Two, three more times. Finally he rolled to a bruised and battered mess amidst a bed of crushed and torn grass. Beneath his hands dry dirt pressed damply into a splayed copy.

With some effort Soli managed to slowly push himself up into sitting and found himself staring up at the shadowed edge of the woods not from the bottom of a steep incline, but rather across a series of rolling hills. His only clue it was the same one he'd left the gentle swaying of some trees where Beore must have retreated back into his domain.

"Beore! Come back! Beore!" his voice rose shaky and lonely over the moonlit grass.

There was no answer.

Spoiler: Author's Note

Oh no, the mysterious and absent-minded giant talking tree has left our poor boy all alone! Who could ever have foreseen this set of circumstances. Truly. What a shock.

Alas this is sort of Soli's lot at the moment, to be left behind, to escape from one danger into another slightly less obvious danger. To wander and definitely be lost.

Please, feedback and critique is welcome.

 

[CuttleFish2.0]

Chapter 13

Ash watched the smudge in the sky circle back over the column for the third time in the last hour.

Peter would have had an idea of what it might be, he was wild about beasts and monsters and all that adventure stuff. Always hanging out at the adventurers bars, picking up little bits and pieces from wandering rangers and other such folk that trickled through Southgate. Sometimes they even paid him for bits of gossip.

Not much, just a few coins here and there to find out which of the local rich folk were having troubles or what the city's troubles were. And knowing where to run to to scare off especially persistent guards had proven its worth plenty.

Sometimes they needed lookouts or to put a tail on someone for a day or even just a guide and people who spent most of their time wandering from place to palace killing things for profit didn't always know what a street kid's time was worth. And they often didn't expect to deal with Sair batting her innocent little eyes at them, talking up the danger they were putting a few 'scrawny orphans' in.

She snorted, that had been a good day. Fifteen thars for just half a day's standing around walking the entrances for a couple buildings.

Turning back west the smudge soared across the pale blue, cloudless sky for several minutes before sharply veering north again for the icy snow-capped peaks of the Stormshatter, wreathed in a thin cloak of whitish gray clouds, mountains and racing away. Over the next few minutes it went from a smudge to a dot to nothing. Whatever it had been, it had lost interest in the column. Ash wished she too could take flight like that and soar back the way she'd come.

Idiot, she chastised herself as she tore her eyes from the empty stretch of sky and back onto the road ahead.

Magister Duinne had made it clear that the only reason Ash wasn't being clapped in irons and hauled off for either the gallows or conscription was that they had caught her. Using magic (Ash was still coming to terms with the idea that she'd actually used magic without knowing) to interfere with the activities of the army was a capital offense. So her choice had been the fickle temper of marching soldiers or apprenticeship.

Hardly a choice at all.

And now Ash had the dubious honor of being apprentice number two to one Rheithc Duinne — 'River-Wielder, Starcaller, Keeper of Three-Hills, and member in good standing of the Circle of Red Stars' — probably the strangest wizard she'd ever seen.

Of course they were also maybe the fourth or fifth one she'd ever seen. With all the others being road weary wanderers flecked in monster blood, or so Ash hoped, kicking off their sensible leather boots after months of adventuring in bars and taverns. Not exactly a wide selection to compare against. Thus far her apprenticeship had mostly consisted of waking up somewhere around the gods forsaken crack of dawn, with the rest of the column, and then walking alongside soldiers as Magister Duinne lectured her at length.

Just that morning the Magister had covered the most recent war between the Republic and the Zoeys- that was, the Zho-Thrakene. Nearly thirty years ago.

"... until the battle of Uren's Crossing, just twenty-five kilometers short of the Southern March, in ninety-two when the Republic Army under the command of General Ysvirr Thuradottir managed to throw back the last of regular Imperial units," since the day at the gate Duinne had dressed much more conservatively, in muted robes of brown and grey and green, which Ash suspected was to avoid stains, "Extended well past the limit of their supply lines, and lacking a good landing for friendly ships the Imperial army was forced to retreat back down the Seared Road— "

At first Ash had thought the name just a name. But the other day the Magister had that the Seared Road was a road stretching from Thoth (some big port city) down in the southern marcher kingdoms, just over the border of the Republic, to Pythios in the Zoey Colonies, which had literally seared into existence millenia ago. Stories went that it had been dragons that had done it, using spells and their own dragonfire, back in the days when they ruled over slave kingdoms. Myth, Magister Duinne called that.

Magic had definitely been involved and a not inconsiderable amount of heat ("Dragonfire would have done it, the only question is whether it did.") in creating it. Wide enough for ten carts to travel abreast of one another the Seared Road was black as midnight, gently sloped to either edge, and so smoothly graded a noble wouldn't complain about their ass aching after hours on it. It also remained warm to the touch even in winter. Very useful for armies.

" —all the way south to the string of fortifications by the Fingers. Meanwhile the Republican navy was trouncing the remaining imperial squadrons still operating north of the equator and this side of the Boiling Gap," which Ash now knew was part of the sea separating Cimer from Ong-Didao to the east, "culminating in the Battle of the Seagull Chain, after which… "

History was not the only subject of their lectures. Though it was the most common.

Topics ranged from numbers to plants and all sorts of even less sensible things — Ash didn't see what she was supposed to take from some ancient whoever who thought the world was round like a seed or riverstone — and the lectures usually lasted several hours. After which the Magister would take off to meet with the army commanders. On some days she had as much as five minutes alone.

But before long Cazandra, the other apprentice, who Ash had tried to rob twice now, would show up and start ordering her about for most of the day's march. Something which she seemed very much to enjoy, telling Ash in turns to pick up her pace and slow down, to step away from her and not leave her sight.

By the end of the third day on the road she was already imagining the other girl in the poofy hat of a Yellow Cap. Swaggering down Market Street club in hand and a glare for everyone who crossed her path.

Which inevitably led her to staring wistfully down the worn dirt road running through the Giant's Cleft to Southgate.

It had taken more than it had ever given to her, but Southgate was still home.

She remembered the small shack in Oldfield, with its dirt floors and leaky ceiling. The tiny little park where her mother took her to crawl around in the dirt and mud. Cuddling up in the single bed and listening to her father recount the story of 'Ajun and the Seven Waterfalls' or 'Sajang Falling into the Crack in the World.'

Even amongst all the bad there were some bright spots.

After her parents died, after the Yellow Caps had run her off (sleeping in the crawl space beneath neighbors floorboards), there'd been a kindly cook at one of the taverns up by Soldier's Row. Liked to tell dirty jokes. Sold her good food for cheaper than it was worth.

Sair and Peter and Colm and the others. Her little family.

That was all lost to her now. Even if Ash could slip past the soldiers, evade whatever magic the Magister would work, and make it back to Southgate on her own… she'd never escape what they'd shown her.

Because after the lectures and the orders, around midday (shouldering up on both sides against lunch), there were three hours of 'practical' lessons. It was hardly anything truly exciting. Cazandra for all her bluster and arrogant swagger did not actually seem to know many spells. Under the Magister's watchful eye the thraik girl would go through rote motion after rote motion, carefully intoning strange words and sounds, as the Magister offered occasional words of advice, encouragement, and reprimand—

"Relax your shoulder, Cazzie, proper somatic clerity requires easy, fluid movements."

"Yes, Magister."

...

"Sloppy. Stress intonation on the second syllable, not the third. Lower your register before your transition."

"Yes, Magister."

…

"Good, that was almost entirely correct. Now do it again, double speed this time."

"Yes, Magister."

…

And so on.

—too seemingly little effect. Occasionally there would be some spark or the waft of something in the air, but Ash was not much impressed by the other apprentice's ability. Still she absorbed it all. Not only because her duty in all this was to take notes.

Because despite her apparent failure, Ash knew that Cazandra could do magic and had experienced it first hand. She knew that if she was ever going to catch up she would have work harder than the other girl, faster, just to get to the same place.

Something made painfully obvious by the thraik's critique of her handwriting. 'Sloppy.' 'Barely legible.' 'The collected scratchings of a pair of blind chickens, masquerading as text.'

Nevermind that Ash had not needed to write a word in years.

There was no escaping it either, because it was the other apprentice's job to take her notes and correct them for errors every night. And then Magister Duinne would look them over in the early evening and offer mild, but piercing, comments.

In the week they'd been travelling Ash had managed to fill in a whole notebook with actual useful notes and every night she went back over them and devoured at least a page of them, trying to force the knowledge to burrow deep into her mind. She thought it was working.

But only so many hours in any day could be filled by history, note taking (and note revising), and review of the same. And so each evening she and Cazandra would be sent out by the Magister to range just beyond the column to search for plants, bugs, and other such things which could apparently be used in potions and the like. Thankfully by that point in the day Cazandra usually seemed to have run out of unpleasantness and was, if not friendly, then at least no longer chomping at the bit to bite Ash's head off.

That lasted until an hour or two after sundown, when the camp followers and army cooks provided the evening meal. Often some sort of hearty stew — light on the meat, but with plenty of potato and carrot and onion swimming in a thick brown, fatty broth flavored with a few sprigs of herbs — served with double-baked trail bread. Ash then spent the better part of the next few hours alternately eating and being quizzed on all the things she'd learned that day by both Magister Duinne and her fellow apprentice.

By the time both were finished she was thoroughly exhausted. Though that likely had more to do with the ten to twelve hours of keeping up with the column. She usually fell asleep within minutes of packing herself into the small carriage carrying Magister Duinne and Cazandra's (and she supposed, now her) luggage and supplies.Despite the cramped conditions and (half) unpleasant company.

Four or five hours of sleep and then it was up at midnight for stargazing (which for Ash meant more note taking) or yet more foraging about in the wilderness. So far, much more of the former than the latter. Lots of sitting on damp grass or on a(n) (in)convenient rock scribbling down numbers and terms that meant nothing to her while Cazandra stared up at the night sky through a shiny brass and steel telescope longer than the thraik's arms.

After that it was back to sleep for another few hours until she was awoken again by either her sleeping companion's jostling or the noise of the camp grinding into life with the approaching dawn. Then it was time to do it all over again.

*
*

Cazandra came awake with a start and immediately regretted it.

With three of them inside the carriage each night it was incredibly stuffy, even with the mild early spring temperatures. Much worse than it had been with just her and the Magister on the way down from High Coast just a few years before but then again that time they'd been travelling well settled country and could stop at an inn most nights. The same was not true of the lands of the Giant's Cleft.

There'd been no signs of habitation since a trapper's house at the edge of a woody outcropping five days back. No current habitation at least.

She'd seen what might have been the crumbled remnants of a wall the day before. Then again it might have simply been a pile of rocks washed down from the foothills of the mountains by last summer's thaw.

Floods inundated parts of the Cleft every year as the mountain rivers to the north and south swelled in spring and then overtopped their banks as the heat of the year climbed to its peak, it delayed caravans and sometimes even killed unwary merchants. From fall to early spring though it was safe. Even when it was flooding it still cut off nearly a year from any trip between Iyalim and the Republic, at least for transporting anything in any quantity, otherwise goods had to make the long trip up through the Marches between Iyalim in the middle of the continent and the Leuss Kandswahr Bundengrunn on the far northwest of it tp Alegnia and from there round the northeast coast.

Half the towns and cities in the north Marches were as good as bandit kingdoms themselves so it was no wonder that caravans and merchants used the Cleft even with the risk of floods spoiling things. And with the ports of western Iyalim pulling in goods from most of the southern continent as well as the lower half of the Kandswahr peninsula it was a vital source of goods for the Republic as well. Patrols went out every few months (during the safer seasons, weeks during summer and spring) from Southgate.

Because the Holds didn't venture far from their mountain gates it was the Republican Army which kept the meandering paths of the Cleft clear of bandits and monsters.

Glancing at the covered wagons at the center of the column Cazandra pondered them with a new eye. She still didn't know what was underneath those canvas coverings. That was strictly need to know and though Magister Duinne did, their apprentice (apprentices now, Cazandra supposed) most assuredly did not. But though the Magister refused to tell her, they had not discouraged her from making educated guesses.

Maybe some sort of new scouting technology, she wondered, you couldn't ask for a better place to test it out.

Immediately her mind went to foldable wood and rope towers temporarily anchored in place so that soldiers wrapped in puffy linen insulation and outfitted with wings of wood (or bone) and canvas could climb to their tops and glide over acre after acre of terrain. Add a small handful of lightening enchantments and they might actually be able to achieve sustained flight. For a time at least.

Or maybe tall poles topped by carefully arranged mirrors controlled by silken ropes. Spread out across the Cleft, or really any large enough area, they could provide rapid communication. All it would need would be a clear day or a simple Light enchantment... and to know the precise location of the other mirror.

Probably not, then, she sighed.

Whatever it was was very valuable, or very dangerous, given the number of soldiers that had been sent out to guard it. Seventy-odd men and women. Humans, dwarves, and even a handful of thraikon too. And not a one in the slapdash assortment of armor most of Southgate's garrison wore, no they had proper kit all painted up in the slate-grey with blue accents of the Republics colors. Leather cuirass and steel pauldrons, with mail for the officers and good quality saddles for the scout's horses.

This wasn't the pet unit of some well-connected noble, these were the proper elites, probably from either High Coast or Ferdun's Bay.

Someone had taken notice of whatever this was, wanted it to go off without a hitch. And whoever had been in charge back in Southgate had doubled down on that; made a deliberate show of force and roped in the only wizard west of Hainnford capable of matching that to protect it too.

For what? Not just the pet project of some noble sitting on their ass in Parliament, that was for sure.

Had to be something more than that or the real army boys and girls would never have moved hide or claw for it. But what could motivate them? Something to do with the war everyone said was looming with the Zho-Thrakene she was certain. Could be that the Republic was trying its own negotiations with the Holds; bribing them with gold and jewels, or silks and spices and exotic pelts from overseas, or even Primordial Materials. Though they should have plenty of their own sources for that.

Both the Blackrock and Stormshatter ranges were supposed to be chocked full of deposits. Granted, they were mainly the less useful sorts; cloudstone and shatter-ice and the like.

Still, it wasn't as if the Republic had any great glut of the stuff.

No. It probably wasn't the Holds then. So then it had to be Iyalim.

Kandswahr was too far away to care much if the Zho-Thrakene started moving again, their navy could easily sea off any squadrons that made the long journey around half the continent to pester them and the isthmus of their peninsula would safeguard them if the Zho-Thrakene somehow managed to try for a land invasion sometimes before next century. That only left Imperial Iyalim, who if the Zho-Thrakene managed to beat the republic in the field would be directly threatened on two fronts. And the Cleft led right into the upper stretches of the Nurazsh.

Which split most of the country as well as the capital, Iyadh. No small part of why the Cleft was so valuable to the iyali and the Republic.

A straight shot through the heart of their territory.

Cazandra nodded. All of that was very well reasoned, though it didn't do much to actually answer the question of what exactly was being carried on those seven enormous carts under such a veil of secrecy. Though 'smaller' than the Republic, the Iyali were not exactly poor by any stretch.

Some version of their empire had existed for most of the four centuries preceding Highmourne's own founding as a republic and Iyali scholars claimed some presence in the region since before the slave kingdoms of the True Dragons. Which was to say, before reliable historical records. Not that she necessarily doubted it. If there ever was a people obsessed with history it would be the Iyali; their penchant for personal record keeping extending naturally to archaeology and the like. It was only that even the existence of the 'slave kingdoms' was a giant question.

Certainly there had been advanced pre-historic civilizations all across Cimer, plenty of scattered ruins attested to that, and there was no doubting that True Dragons had figured very heavily into many of them, but what little had survived over the millennia since their fall was fragmented at best and contradictory at worst. Whether the dragons had ruled over the people of those ages with iron claw and calculated spell or been infrequent figureheads for whatever local king or queen or whatever held sway, no one could truthfully say. Not without being laughed out of the room.

Trying to bribe the empire would be foolish. And sending less than a full army detachment to guard it? Doubly so.

But if the relationship between the empire and the Republic is about to cha—

All her speculation and pondering came to an abrupt halt as the open toe of her boots caught on the edge of a protruding rock in the ground and Cazandra nearly went end over end. Lunging forward to recover her balance she barely stopped herself.

She'd been so caught up in her woolgathering and idle thoughts that she'd forgotten to keep an eye on the road ahead of her.

Cursing herself silently she stopped and took a moment to regain her balance, glancing around to see if anyone else had caught her stumble, but thankfully the few soldiers who might have been looking her way were boredly keeping their own gazes focused. Or too distracted by caterwauling some song about a village girl and the various partners and positions she enjoyed. Sneering her disgust quietly to herself Cazandra shook herself off and resumed walking.

Spoiler: Author's Note

This requires a fair amount of rewriting in parts and there are other parts I'm still not happy with. Probably could do with some paring down, but I'm not prepared to do it yet, so here it is for (hopefully) some feedback.

We're back with Ash and Cazandra. Where circumstances have changed radically for both of them.