Having felt this greatest loss,
A bridge of shadows do I cross
Through the darkness to the light
‘Twixt the boundaries of sight
And escape this pain, this grief,
‘Cross this World hewn from belief.
- Almarai Lullaby
He who is Bre’et looks up and cannot find the sky and cannot find the white rel who smells of stormfire and cannot find her. She is gone and he waits to fade away but he does not. He understands. He is a part of the World now because she has named him. Because she believes in him. He is unsure if this is for the better.
The fog rolls away, skimming on the river’s surface to travel down to the sea, leaving the surging meadowlands quiet and empty. Bre’et has never known this being alone. Now he wishes he could just be out of the World again. It is easier. It is not this empty feeling. It does not hurt.
He is assaulted by noise. From the hole in the earth, a thin rolling yowl makes Bre’et wish for the hurtful silence. It is a long, miserable sound of pain, framed by the smell of blood.
The pachaak, slicked red and mewling, lies in the hole. It was crushed by the white wings when Bre’et charged the boy. It is a pathetic sight and Bre’et turns away. The pachaak continues to cry its pain but it struggles to its feet. One of its legs twists at a strange angle and it limps as it walks outside, squealing piteously with each step, its packs throwing it off balance.
Bre’et does not know what to do. He stares up into the sky, wishing the creature would go away but it waddles close to him and lifts its massive head up as well, crying to the suns. It wants the small women who smells of stone and talks to walls. It is lost without her and for a moment, Bre’et feels kinship with another creature. Warily, he puts his beak to the little beast’s head and licks the thickly-scaled skin there. The pachaak shudders and pulls away at first, but then it freezes in mid-motion.
There is a sound that is not natural from any animal. It is hard and sharp and high, like glass suddenly freezing. Bre’et has heard this sound in his time in the White Lands, the chink-chink-chink of crystal. The pachaak grows rigid and its scales change from their normal muddy green to the bright color of greenspark as it transforms from living flesh to gemstone. Sunslight shines across the jewel beast’s skin.
It opens its mouth in a final cry and shatters into innumerable pieces. Its pack drops amongst the shards, spilling things broken by the impact inside the dirt hole, and light scintillates across the shards but fails to warm Bre’et. He is cold deep inside where no light will ever penetrate. He is once more alone in the World.
He who is Bre’et does to himself what he would never allow others to do to him. He pushes his head beneath the straps of the lonely pack and gets it onto his back. He is no more than a beast of burden now, a pack animal. But if he does not look back at it, it could be the weight of her on his back, comforting, laughing. It is not but it is a good dream.
He who has been named Bre’et turns to go but then turns back. Leaning down, he takes the largest of the greenspark shards in his mouth. He drops it into the open pouch of the pack and then bends to the task of burying the rest of the little beast’s remains. He does not wonder why an animal should turn to jewels. He has seen stranger things in the World. He is one of them himself, a black Child that cannot be. He has heard this from Maan many times before but, like her, he has decided to be for as long as he can. For as long as it takes to find her.
She has disappeared into the sky and he does not know where to go. With nothing to point him in the right direction, he turns to follow the eastward flow of the river, looking for a way to cross that includes no swimming. Bre’et does not like swimming.
The suns look down and warm his back but he ignores them, as he always has, and makes his own way in the World.
****
Any listener may have come to realize that there are many, many Tales in the World. There are the Shared Tales, stories known by all, the history of the World and its Goddessi, Tales that must be known by all for the World to keep its shape. But every corner of the World has its own Tales as well, unshared and unknown to the far off reaches of the land and its peoples. While it may seem a pity to keep these narratives quarantined from the larger World, a dutiful listener such as yourself will soon realize the wisdom in this.
One such story, begun and kept in the eastern part of the great Kalrathi, is that of a young Sanaiian girl.
The girl is part of a Camp, a small gathering of family members who work during the coolest part of the very hot year to hunt for food and supplies to last them the rest of the long hot year. The girl is not yet old enough to participate in hunting even if she were interested in doing so, which she is not.
She is still too small to help with the cutting of sandstone bricks from the little quarry her family has dug out, if she were so inclined, which she is not.
It is possible that she could spend her time trapping smaller animals for skins or water pouches, or attempt to catch the great skimmer birds that fly low near the waters of the small nearby oasis, dipping their big beaks and filling their bellies without ever halting in flight. Other young people spend the lightest parts of the night doing this, for the Eyes of Sanai look down so strongly during most the day that no sane person would risk leaving her tent for fear of succumbing to the hot stare of the Fire Goddess. But, as you may have guessed, she does not.
While her cousins flit about in hollow pursuits, the girl sits in the storage tent which doubles as the shrine tent, squinting in the flickering glow of a fire that hovers over her shoulder without tinder or anchor. Her small finger follows small-carved words on a woodslat scroll and though the words are old, old beyond youthful understanding of time, she understands them. Their meaning does not escape her but they do not hold the information she seeks.
She sets them aside finally as Venpar, the red Lesser Eye, sinks close to the horizon. Everyone will be awake soon and she will have to go about the routine of her day, but before the others of the Camp can wake, she plucks the ball of flame following at her back from the air and places it within a circle of black stones on the sand floor of the tent. The dark irregular shapes do not belong to her but she has been given permission by her Master to use them as she wants. And she wants very much. She has used them more often than is probably advisable but she cannot help herself. Her mind is old, well-developed, but her body is still that of a child, with all the ready spontaneity and poor judgment that youth and hot blood bring.
The flames lick at its smooth dark bonds but cannot escape. These are pieces of the black heart of a mountain of fire, gathered at great danger to life and limb and sold at a high price. She does not know where her Master procured so many, enough for a whole fire pit ring, but she does not waste wonder at this. Her Master is a resourceful Maan, ever full of mystery.
She orders the flames to call out to him and after some weak, petulant resistance, the blaze does as it is bid. Shadows wax and wane, throwing themselves against the inside of the tent, clawing at the hanging protectors that keep them from escaping out into the World, shaking a set of thin woodbinds off one of the storage crates in a fit of pique before finally shaping themselves into the figure of a man.
The girl greets her Master dutifully, head bowed and arms crossed over her chest in respect. He does not return this greeting, which is both his prerogative and his nature. His words are light and casual, his motions jovial and enigmatic.
