Eight 4

Two days later, Iseld made good on her promise, and a large map tube was delivered to the inn, along with a stack of papers, the ink still fresh on the last page. My team and I briefly looked through the records, noting that they appeared to more comprehensively document Old Baxteiyel than anything else we’d seen, particularly the map.

The ruins had held up over time much better than I would’ve expected, and there were apparently many buildings with walls still standing. There were also notes about a handful of routes helpful to moving around the city while out of view of the top of the pyramid where Asiik’s nest was located.

At Aslishtei’s residence, Anya clapped her hands when she saw the papers in our hands. Then she rushed over to start flipping through them right there in the front parlor. Weni had to pull her away so that we could set up in the dining room instead. We used the big table to organize everything.

I’ll say this about Anya, though—she was methodical and came up with a process whereby we all read the papers through. Ikfael had the honor of going first, then as each page was read, it was passed down the line to Anya, Mumu, Tegen, and so on.

Then we organized the records into piles, collating the information about the Baxtei people, their history and culture. There were also sketches of important architectural features; descriptions of the runes that had been discovered; eyewitness accounts from the survivors of previous expeditions; a list of failed measures taken to break into the pyramid; and another list that described the failed attempts on Asiik’s life.

Honestly, there was a lot more than I expected, and we spent a week going through it all, which included a point-by-point comparison of the world speakers’ records against those we’d gathered from the hunter, soldier, and philosopher lodges. We also built up a clay model on the dining room table based on the map we’d received. There was no way it could be truly accurate, but it was a good starting point for understanding how the place was structured and how we might hide among the buildings still standing.

Throughout the week, Aslishtei had hovered in the background, stepping forward only when she’d had something to contribute—mostly about the study and nature of magic. On a couple of occasions, my team had been asked to leave the room so that she could share information meant for Anya and Weni only. Other times, different members of the family had come forward to share their expertise.

Ikfael had hid in her figurine during those sessions, but she’d stayed focused the entire time. Every single one of us had been intent on absorbing as much of the information as possible, doing what we could to synthesize it and make it actionable.

Here was what we’d learned that would likely be relevant to the race:

Asiik possessed complete dominion over the sky above Old Baxteiyel. Every account we’d read theorized he was at a minimum One With the Air. He could disappear in the blink of an eye, and projectiles were useless against him.

Asiik still needed to eat, though, so he couldn’t watch over the city at every moment of every day. When he went hunting, the city would continue to be defended, but it was by the undead.

Yeah, zombies. Asiik apparently didn’t absorb the light of every creature he killed. Instead, he waited a day to check if they turned into zombies. Those that didn’t, he took their light. Those that did, he left alone.

And the undead followed rules. They never attacked Asiik and mostly stayed within the city’s boundaries. The accounts were evenly split between blaming the necromancy on either the winged kalesk or a feature within the city.

We found a name for Asiik’s supposed mate—Amleila. The story was that she’d been trapped inside the pyramid and should’ve been long dead by now. Although, one world speaker posited the theory that she might be undead and the one controlling the city’s zombies.

No one actually knew the pyramid’s contents, including the nature of its treasures. But the Baxtei people had been powerful, so a heaven-defying power was plausible. It sounded like lightning to me, but that could’ve just been me fantasizing.

Not that it mattered. As much as I dreamed of getting access to a lightning-based treasure, there was no way our expedition had a shot at it. Between Asiik and the pyramid’s other defenses—our odds were nope, nada, zilch.

On the other hand, the Arc of Knowledge was real. There were five buildings that, if I’d had a compass, I would’ve been able to draw a perfect semicircle through them using the pyramid as the center. They were described by previous expeditions as: The Temple of the Sun, The Temple of Wanting, The Temple of a Thousand Dreams, The Temple of Ages Past, and The Temple of the Moon.

No information was available about these buildings other than their names. Oh, some of the expeditions had gotten inside; they just hadn’t shared what they’d found.

The Baxtei people had built a small fortress in the hills opposite the city. The place was called Fort Olana, and it overlooked both Old Baxteiyel and the Sootyel River. Knight Ithia had restored the fortress so that her land soldiers could keep an eye on the city and Asiik.

As we’d read and studied and planned, it became clearer and clearer that the plan to avoid the pyramid was a good one. The race was a deathtrap in disguise. We’d get what could from the Arc using the other racers as a distraction, but then we’d get out of there.

###

By the end of the week, our planning had stopped generating anything useful, so the expedition switched gears—heading to the Hunter’s Lodge to practice our anti-undead tactics instead.

Mumu pulled rank on Anya to drag her and her sister along with us. Otherwise, she would’ve happily continued to pore over the records. This way, though, we’d be more coordinated if/when a fight broke out. Our hope, of course, was for the bigger expeditions to draw the undead to them, but to assume everything would go smoothly was just asking for Murphy’s Law to strike.

The days rolled by. I called Bihei and the kids to stay in touch with what was happening in Voorhei, while Mouser called to let us know about the Glen. During breaks in our training, we went wandering through Albei’s streets. In the evenings, we listened to music.

The Horn hosted entertainment on most nights, alternating between musicians and poets. But busking had also become a more-established thing recently, with the musicians tending to cluster around the poorer neighborhoods near the walls. People set up in front of their homes to sing and play music.

There were even two streets adjacent to each other that drew big enough crowds to also attract hawkers selling snacks and drinks to the visiting crowds. My team went one night, and we had a lot of fun there. Not everyone who played was good, but the atmosphere was lively, and it was a relief from the intensity of our training.

Snow even made a couple of taak. She drew her own crowd, and the people gasped in amazement to see her Blink from one side of the street to the other, to the tops of buildings and back. She had me spend the money she’d earned on the Albei equivalent of kebobs.

Afterward, back in the quiet of our inn room, I heard Ikfael humming a melody we’d heard earlier in the evening. She’d come along with us while inside her figurine.

Things between us seemed fine on the surface, but there was awkwardness too. I found myself second-guessing the things I’d said and done around her. Gods, in some ways it felt like being a teenager again.

Then, five days from when the race was scheduled to start, I was sitting with the others eating lunch in the courtyard belonging to the Hunter’s Lodge. We’d been training, and I was feeling sore from getting whacked along the back by Tegen’s spear—just a tap, really, to point out where I’d been neglecting my guard.

Anyway, my phone sounded an alarm, a kind of bleating I’d never heard before. There was a notification:

Warning: Extreme Weather Event Expected

In three days’ time, a storm of hurricane proportions is expected to make landfall along the coast north of Sugrusu Hakei. Expect winds of up to 76 eisqilm per hour, along with heavy rainfall, flooding, and storm surges.

The storm’s path is yet to be determined. There is an equal chance that it will divert south along the coast or travel inland toward the city of Albei.

My first thought was: Damn, that’s like a hundred-twenty miles per hour. And then the news sunk in, and I practically flew out of my body, becoming one with the sky.

The weather had been temperamental all day, unable to decide how it wanted to be. The winds had come and gone. Rain had fallen, but for only a few minutes at a time. The sun had peeked out from behind clouds, hidden again, and then come back to smile on our lunch.

I moved along the atmospheric paths toward where I’d been sensing the storm building over the ocean, and there was a dark, heavy mass out that way. Even at a distance, I felt the sheer, destructive power, the spirits of the air frenzied by its potential. And this was just in the outer rainbands. What must it be like at the storm’s center?

A few of the spirits noticed my presence and attempted to shoo me away, like they were urging a pup to go back inside the den where it was safe.

I reached inside to the place where my body power resided. Dimly, I sensed the silver wires in my spine warming up. The energy flowed, and it slipped into the mana rune I’d mentally prepared, the two bound together with qi. The result was an emanating pressure—a request to the spirits—but it did no good. The brewing storm wouldn’t budge an inch from its intended path.

I tried again, but this time the wind spirits rushed to block me. They swirled, howling, and would have surely torn me apart if not for the authority I’d gained from my path and talents.

Another wind spirit approached, this one milder, and they carried me out of harm’s away. Like a curtain parting, they split apart the air to give me a view past the storm’s eyewall to its heart. There, I saw potential, a co-joining of air, water, and spirit that looked… that looked like it might give birth to something else. Something beautiful and powerful, I was sure of it in my bones.

The storm was essentially a cradle, and the spirits fiercely protected its contents. Nothing would stop what was to come—not even a Storm Caller. No, a true friend of the spirits of air wouldn’t interfere, and if they did… well, the interference would prove they were never a friend to begin with.

I knew from experience that my Status camera didn’t work on elemental spirits. They were too far along at the other end of the spectrum away from mortal. Still, I had to at least try it on the exultant energies inside the cradle.

Error

Not a valid talent vessel.

The curtain closed, and I lost sight of the storm’s heart. That gentle spirit who’d provided the view then pushed, and I fell away from even the rainbands surrounding it. Through the currents I traveled until I was once more above Voorhei.

There, I hovered a while to consider what I’d seen. There was nothing I could do to abate the storm, at least until the spirits were done with it. Although, depending on the timing of the birth and the path the storm ultimately took, I might have enough authority to shift it a few degrees in order to spare Albei and Voorhei from getting battered. I’d just have to see how everything played out.

I bowed to the spirits and cast my apologies into the currents to be taken back to both those that had helped and hindered me. They’d kept me from creating trouble for myself. I felt more of my body power drain away then, but that was good; it meant that I was forgiven for any transgressions.

I looked around me, but this was a place inhabited solely by atmospheric forces. All I saw was the local winds’ indecision. One with sky slipped away.

I’d been so deep into the experience, I needed time to reorient to the physical again. My jaw had clenched, so I worked it open and closed to loosen the muscles, doing my best to ignore the not-quite painful heat radiating from my back.

Yuki cast Iron Body to help ground me, and once I felt like myself, like I could talk again, the words spilled out. I explained what I’d seen to the others, while Yuki shifted their attention to warn my family in Voorhei and the silver wolves in the Glen.

Moments later, Mumu strode away yelling for messengers. She’d send them to the city head’s offices, Knight Ithia’s fortress, and Albei’s pyramid. One would also go to Voorhei. The last likely wasn’t necessary—everyone in the village knew that my family owned the expensive version of the calling stones—but for a disaster of this magnitude, it didn’t make sense to take any chances. Safety lay in providing multiple modes of confirmation.

That was why, once the messengers were sent, Mumu left to go to the Diviner’s Lodge. They had their own emergency processes in place; we might as well take advantage of them. As for why those measures weren’t already in action? I had no idea. You’d figure that a major event like a hurricane would pop up in their predictions.

Haol went with Mumu, but I was still feeling light-headed, so the others stayed behind to watch over me. One with the sky didn’t usually knock me this far into a loop, but the forces at work over the ocean had been intense.

I paced back and forth across the courtyard just to feel my body moving. In the background, the Yuki network hummed with activity: my team discussed contingency plans, Bihei reported on a hurried conversation with the village head, and Mumu expressed satisfaction with the connections she’d formed with the diviners. Apparently, they weren’t as unaware as we’d thought; instead they’d been seeking confirmation of their own.

Just as Mumu and Haol were leaving the diviners to head to Uncle Kila’s place, I heard a commotion from inside the lodge. That drew the rest of us to a tall, thin man in world speaker robes. All around him, clumps of hunters gathered to listen to what he had to say. There weren’t as many as you’d expect, though. Quite a few seemed to have left after overhearing Mumu’s hurried instructions to the messengers she’d sent.

Still, there were enough that the world speaker had to raise his voice to be heard: “Hunters of Albei, listen to my words. The Great Race begins in five days, and our Honored Xefwen the Hierophant has divined its starting point. All those wishing to aid his sacred mission to pierce the veil of time and uncover the secrets of Old Baxteiyel must do so by beginning from the town of Bashruuta, a day to the east. Those that do not do so will be disqualified.”

“There’s a storm coming,” I yelled out, and more than a few of the hunters nodded along. “We just sent word about it to the city’s leadership and—”

“In five days, from the town of Bashruuta,” the worlds speaker said. “Nothing else is acceptable. If the threat of rain and wind scares you, then stay home to warm your mother’s bed.”

The insult got a nasty murmur from the assembled hunters in response, and I wasn’t too pleased with it myself, to be honest. Habit had had me skim the world speaker’s talents as soon as I’d seen him, but now I went back for a closer look:

Kimson of Bashruuta (Human)

Talents: Seered by Light, Loyalty Amplified, Steady-Handed

He appeared to be in his forties, so possessing three talents was about right. Two of them, though, were unusual which spoke to a measure of skill and/or power. His spirit certainly swirled with confidence.

Also on display was his full faith in the hierophant and in his… teammates, was it? Yes, he seemed to be looking forward to the Great Race more than a mere messenger might. Kimson was a participant too, perhaps one of the ones that Iseld had warned me about.

Tegen pushed forward. “Honored World Speaker, it seems you’ve left your pyramid still a babe, having spent too much time within its sheltered embrace and not enough in the world outside. I recommend you—” Before he could dig in, though, and really toy with the world speaker, the sound of the city’s drums interrupted him.

The lodge emptied as we all spilled out the door to better listen.

As the rhythm was picked up and carried from one neighborhood to the next like a wave spreading outward toward the wall, the message translated to: “Alarm, alarm, alarm. A storm approaches in three to five days. Militia duties activated. Prepare for the worst. Obey the land soldiers.”

I caught sight of Kimson blushing furiously, and without another word he went scurrying off in the direction of Albei’s pyramid.

“So that’s confirmation, then,” a hunter muttered.

“Do we continue?” another asked.

“We’d best discuss it,” the first replied. “If nothing else, there’s planning to be done.”

Tegen nodded, and turned to Teila and me. “The same is true for us and our expedition. We’ll head to Aslishtei’s residence to await our teammates there.”

###

That evening, Albei began their storm preparations. The militia mobilized to board up windows, disassemble the stalls at the open markets, make room for their livestock indoors, and clean up the streets so that there wasn’t debris the wind could turn into projectiles. There was probably much more that they did, but those were the things I saw from the bridge connecting Aslishtei’s residence to the neighbors.

The reality was, even if the majority of the hurricane diverted south along the coast, a portion would still likely make its way inward. Even a diminished version of the storm posed a real danger, assuming it did go south. There was a fifty-percent chance it might come inland, in which case heaven help Albei.

While a hurricane’s strength would normally drop in intensity once it no longer had access to the warm ocean water that fueled it, this particular storm was very much out of the ordinary. The spirits I’d seen looked like they’d do whatever it took to see their purpose fulfilled. If, for whatever reason, that required hundred-mile winds over land, then they’d find a way to do it.

I turned my attention back to the dark and unwieldy clouds above me. A rain briefly fell, but I only had to step back under cover for a few minutes before the shower ended.

The currents high above blew every which way, the direction confusing. The winds overhead seemed… undecided. I’d never experienced anything like it, and neither had anyone else I’d asked.

Anyway, I went back downstairs to report. The expedition’s members sat in a war council in the dining room. The piles of papers had been moved to one side, and a pot of tea steamed in the middle.

Aslishtei was notably not present since she’d left to help coordinate the land soldiers’ efforts. Not before she’d taken me aside, though, to ask me—her eyes boring into mine—to watch over her nieces.

Over the past few days, she’d hinted strongly about the benefits of her coming along on the expedition. And I… I hadn’t found the idea disgusting. The additional firepower would be helpful, at least while traveling to Old Baxteiyel. Once at the ruins, she’d be a burden like Anya and Weni, but all that meant was that she’d have to wait for us at the boundary.

With a hurricane brewing, that idea was now squashed. Aslishtei would have to stay in Albei to help deal with the emergency.

“How are the skies?” Anya asked.

“The same,” I replied. “The storm will hit the coast in three days. After that, if the winds and clouds decide to come inland, then it might be half a day before they reach Albei.”

“We’ll need to be in Bashruuta well before then,” Mumu murmured.

“Will the storm last more than two days?” Haol asked. “Because if it does, the race will begin under bad weather.”

Before I could answer, though, Teila nudged the pot of tea toward me. While I filled my cup, she asked, “What if they’re related?”

The tea tasted of flowers and honey. “The race and the storm?” I asked back.

Teila nodded. “I’m thinking that the hierophant’s divinations have the race starting in five days for a reason. It’s supposed to be the moment when circumstances align to give him the best chance at getting what he wants.”

“And the storm is destined to play a part in those circumstances,” Anya said, picking up on the hypothesis.

“If that’s the case, would the high winds ground Asiik and make it safer for us to explore the ruins?” Haol asked.

“For that to be true,” I hazarded, “the storm would have to be right on top of Old Baxteiyel and near full strength too. Anything less has a good chance of being overpowered by him. That’s my understanding, anyway.”

Weni nodded. “Asiik is said to be unparalleled in the sky.”

“Even with a Storm Caller among us?” Mumu asked. “All of us are surely thinking the same thing—those circumstances the hierophant is aligning, they must also include our Eight.”

I shrugged. My lightning was powerful, but would it actually harm Asiik? He was supposed to be on a whole other level compared to the typical creatures I’d fought—even the dark and silvered ones.

That said, a storm arriving with this timing did seem awfully coincidental. But then, the whole point of divination was to arrange things to your own benefit. In this case, the hierophant’s benefit. Or was it Heleitia? She’d been watching the stars for hundreds of years longer than Xefwen had even been alive.

Ikfael sat alongside the rest of us, her eyes tracking the conversation as it went around the table. She hadn’t contributed yet, seemingly content to let others do the planning. Until she caught me watching her. Then, she gave me a small encouraging nod and signed, “Don’t forget, Old Baxteiyel is a city of the dead.”

The conversation around the table stopped, and I heard someone gulp. Oh, that was me, I realized.

“That is—” Mumu began. “That is an interesting point.”

Tegen cleared his throat. “Yes.”

Anya quirked her head. “Do you think our Eight can learn something from watching the city’s ghosts? Oh, that is an interesting idea.”

“Would there be many that have lasted this long?” Weni asked.

“We won’t know until we look, until Eight looks,” Anya replied. “None of the expedition records we have mention a spiritualist participating.”

The two sisters went back and forth, discussing the idea, but I couldn’t pay attention. My head was full of my team’s chatter. The voices melded together into a soup of thoughts and opinions:

‘Too dangerous.’

‘Much too dangerous.’

‘But the chance!’

‘A unique opportunity, true.’

‘Tenna’s Gift protects us from the spirits of the dead for a reason.’

‘But Ikfael suggested it.’

‘Made an observation, not a suggestion.’

‘For a reason.’

That last thought seemed to stop the exchange. If it had been anyone else’s suggestion besides Ikfael, then my team likely wouldn’t even be having the conversation. A whole city full of angry, despairing shades? Yeah, that sounded like something straight out of a horror movie. There would’ve been no way we’d even consider the idea.

But Ikfael knew something we didn’t—something she’d likely gotten from Heleitia that we couldn’t exchange for but she could somehow obliquely mention.

We’ll see, I thought. When we get there, if there’s a chance to safely talk to a ghost, I’ll do it.

The chatter quieted. Then, it was just Mumu’s pure and clear, ‘But the risk.’

I sighed and looked over at Ikfael. She gazed at her paws, but I didn’t think she really saw them. Her mind had gone elsewhere.

‘Danger is danger, and we are its hunters,’ I answered. ‘Like every other prey we face, we’ll find a way to make it work. Like every other time, hunters will find the way.”