Strange. Threatening. The very sight of it chilled her, and in the dark it was all too easy to imagine it growing, reaching out to engulf the road-born who dwelled on its perimeter.
She couldn’t imagine living so close to death. How do they sleep down there? she wondered. How do they bear it?
Her eyes moved to the silver-blue ribbon sparkling in defiance of the dark: the Godroad. There were many paths through the Wild but the only safe ones were the Godroads. Relics from the Unbroken Age, each was built straight and true, cutting clean lines of glittering crystal through the trees, dividing the great forest into sections.
Chaos and order. The Wild and the Godroad. The demons and the Deathless.
She let the thoughts roll around in her mind, seeing the way one connected to the other. Like a set of dance steps repeated over and over, endless.
The road-born scavenged the forest, in part to provide for themselves, and in part to provide for people like Chandni.
Inevitably, their activities would catch the attention of the demons and a stalking would begin. After a while, a farm animal would vanish, or a child that had not listened to the warnings of their elders. When this happened, a village would call to their crystal lords for aid and the hunters would come, sending whatever it was back into darkness one way or another.
So it is with the people of Sagan. A cycle. Demons, sacrifice and then the hunt. Soon there will be order again.
But then, should it not also have been that way for the people of Sorn? Chandni shook her head sadly. High Lord Yadavendra had left Sorn to the mercy of the Wild. It was Lord Vasin, not Yadavendra, that was coming to Sagan’s aid.
Things are not as they should be, she thought. We need Lord Rochant back now more than ever.
Satyendra shifted in her arms and she realized she’d been ignoring him for too long. She lifted him up so that he could see over the top of the battlements.
‘Somewhere down there, the elders of Sagan will be choosing their tributes and sending them into the forest. Tributes are very brave, they draw out the demons so the hunters can get them.
‘If you look closely, you might even see their lights. Each one carries a torch to guide the hunters to them.’ Each one would also bear a fresh cut to lure the demons with their blood, but she didn’t mention that.
There were complicated rules about the choosing of a tribute. Some villages would pick their best in the hope that they would survive, bringing honour to all involved. Others would pick their worst, as the hunt was the neatest way to deal with undesirables. For a pariah, such an outcome could be a second chance. More than once, Chandni had heard tales of criminals volunteering to become a tribute in an effort to be forgiven for past crimes.
‘Though the Wild is cruel, my Satyendra, our world is fair. The road-born can rise all the way up here, if they are able enough. Lord Rochant proved that when he became Deathless. And even the Deathless can fall if they betray us. The traitor, Nidra Un-Sapphire, and the previous High Lord, Samarku Un-Sapphire, proved that when they made deals with the Wild. So you have to be perfect in all that you do and never bend, for when crystal bends, it shatters.’
Satyendra’s eyes attended her as she spoke. He is such a bright little thing. Chandni knew he could not understand her yet, but she liked talking to him and believed that, on some level, the spirit of her words was sinking in.
‘Our thoughts are with Lord Vasin and his hunters tonight. May they hunt well and thorough.’
When Satyendra gave a soft gurgle, she took it as agreement and planted a kiss on his forehead.
The rest of her walk passed peacefully, and soon she was back where she’d begun, at the stairwell.
Satyendra yawned and, a moment later, she found herself stifling one of her own. If she went back to her chambers now, she might have time for a few hours of sleep before the rebirth ceremony.
She turned to give Ji a goodnight wave before going inside. He was not the man he used to be, but he had served loyally and she was fond of him.
Halfway through the gesture her hand stopped, confused. Ji was nowhere to be seen. His post empty.
Though she knew in her heart that things were bad, Chadni took the time to check Ji had not simply slipped away to relieve himself or take refuge from the cold. He had not. She checked again. Then she ran.
The Chrysalis Chamber was glass on three sides, letting sunslight pour into the space. Even on a dawn like this one, when only the weakest of the suns, Wrath’s Tear, was peeking over the horizon, the heat was palpable, like a wall that Vasin had to press through.
Normally, sapphires adorned the back of the chamber, slowly spreading in pools of milky liquid, but on hunting days all was cleared away save for a single stand of armour and the two Gardener-smiths ready to help him change.
Each life that Vasin lived demanded a new set of armour, the crystals picked and grown by the Gardener-smiths the day his newest vessel was chosen, taking years and a great deal of skill on the part of the smiths to form it to the individual and establish a firm bond to the body. Though he preferred to be reborn as an adult, Vasin had gone through several childhoods and could recall little more tedious than the long modelling sessions.
Luckily, his last rebirth avoided the whole mess, his descendant having reached maturity before the soul was replaced with Vasin’s. This meant, thankfully, that it was his descendant, rather than him, that had spent several hours a day wearing each piece of crystal as it was grown and cut to fit.
It resulted in armour that fit so close and so naturally it was like skin.
More than that though, each set was grown from crystals harvested from the set before, and over time, they developed a personality of their own. For Vasin, putting the armour on was like reconnecting with the best part of himself. It was like coming home.
He raised his arms, assuming the ritual stance, and the Gardener-smiths took a little blood from his palms, daubing each piece with it, waking the crystal to his presence.
As the drum beats continued, nearing the point where the third and fourth drummers would join, the Gardener-smiths helped him into his Sky-legs, a pair of boots ending in long curving blades that would allow him to land safely, or bound easily into the air. Once mounted, he stood several feet higher than them. This was one of the things Vasin enjoyed most when hunting, the feeling of becoming something greater. Once, in better times, he’d talked about the feeling with his mother, and she’d told him it was the closest they came to being like the gods they were descended from.
The rest of the armour was then attached. He shivered as the crystal greaves were locked into place. At first he could feel them, cool against his calves, and then it was as if they had melted and become part of him.
Plates were attached to his thighs and groin, to his chest and shoulders, arms and hands. He turned his head from left to right, catching a glimpse of crystal wings, feather carved, curved and blade thin, sprouting from his back. Unlike those of birds, his were rigid.
At last a helm was placed on his head. Open-topped to let his hair spill out like a waterfall down his back, the crystal was thinned to give only the slightest tint of blue to his vision, and grown to leave breathing space at his nose and mouth.
Into
