Eight 4

After Aslishtei’s nieces left, my team stuck around the ritual room to hash out our concerns about taking on the job—the primary one being Asiik. There were supposedly other dangers hidden among Old Baxteiyel’s ruins, but anything too powerful for us would’ve already been swallowed by the silvered winged kalesk. It should just be small fry hiding in his shadow.

We wouldn’t count on it—that would be straight-up foolishness given what Diaksha was capable of—but there was a fine balance between due caution and being paralyzed by fear. The crux of the question was if the reward would be worth the risk.

At one point in the discussion, we realized that we’d rehashed the same points a couple of times over, so we switched to talking about everyday topics—I mentioned the rain I’d be bringing in a couple of days, Mumu relayed Nenet’s most recent antics to Teila, and so on. All the while, the information percolated until—

“Two things come to mind,” Tegen said.

“And they are?” Haol asked.

“If not for the race and the distraction it would provide, then we would never attempt to infiltrate Old Baxteiyel,” Tegen replied.

“Agreed, even if the entire city was built from antaak,” Mumu said. “But magic is an investment in the lodge’s future. A chance like this to grow our spell library may never come again.”

“What’s the other thing?” Teila asked.

“That Weni and Anya have joined us on many hunts,” Tegen said. “They know how to work with us, and in turn, we know the depth of their woodcraft. We can trust them not to blunder like other city folk might.”

“They’d have to leave their bodyguards behind,” I noted. “Their aunt may not like that.”

“Then we make it a stipulation of the contract,” Mumu said firmly. “I’ll not bring that team of clod walkers with us.”

“They’re not so bad,” Haol said.

“Oh, they fight well enough,” Mumu said, and left it at that. It was a compliment, yes, but an incomplete one.

While the nieces’ guards were skilled soldiers, none of them knew how to move through the wilderness with any finesse. The trip between Albei and Voorhei was within their capabilities. The deep woods, though? Not so much. The creatures would be able to smell the tension radiating from them from miles away.

“So we have a tentative agreement?” Tegen asked, looking at each of us.

I nodded in response, and the others did to.

Mumu smiled and shook her head. “I never would’ve believed that I would one day visit Old Baxteiyel.”

“We have just under three weeks to prepare for the expedition,” Tegen said. “I’ll write to the grandmaster. I doubt our lodge has information the philosophers don’t but checking costs us nothing.”

“We can’t assume we have that much lead time,” I corrected. “It’ll depend on the race’s starting location and the travel time to get there.”

Tegen nodded. “Good point.”

Mumu turned to me. “Will Ikfael bless us with her presence on this expedition?”

“Given the potential danger, I wouldn’t doubt it.”

“Her company would be welcome,” Haol said with a smile.

“That it would,” Mumu said.

###

By the time my team left the ritual room, the light outside was starting to slant. Another three hours or so and it’d be dusk. Snow had been napping upstairs, but she roused as soon as I climbed through the trap door, and together we headed home. I thought Teila might join us, but she decided to have dinner with her family.

I nudged Yuki. Are the kids still at work?

The uekisheile’s qi sparkled in amusement, and they passed along a message from Aluali: ‘These kalesks aren’t going to skin themselves.’

I snorted. Let him know there’ll be a family meeting tonight.

Yuki acknowledged the thought before turning their attention back to whatever Aluali was doing.

Four years prior, I’d hired the family who’d constructed Ikfael’s shrine to build a workshop along the river to the south of the village. There hadn’t been room inside the walls, and tanning leather was a rather malodorous process.

The lodge’s hunters were more than happy to pass that task over to Billisha and Aluali. Voorhei hadn’t had any specialists in tanning for a couple of generations, and everyone was quite excited to see the industry return. Besides, the kids paid good rates for hides, and the leather they produced was decent and getting better.

They and the folks who ran the smokehouse were probably the only ones working today thanks to the kalesks we brought in the previous night. People waved and bowed as Snow and I walked along the village paths. A few of the children ran up to ask permission to pet the blynx, and she nodded each time to grant it.

She enjoyed the attention, of course, but she also had a soft spot for children.

Sun-on-Snow (Animal)

Talents: Protector, Agile Hunter

Nascent: Blindside Blinker

Snow was Level 4 now and climbing steadily. When I’d first met her, she’d refused to absorb any light whatsoever, content to lay low during the Long Darks, but the last few years had made it clear that the area around the Glen was becoming more and more dangerous. She’d realized that she’d have to grow in power in order to protect herself, the Glen, and her kittens.

Felix and Oscar had moved on, and each had their own territories now. Snow had also had five more litters afterward, her offspring spreading in every direction. Three years ago, however, Snow had stopped seeking to reproduce. Instead, her focus had shifted to reaching dawn—the hope being that any changes to her body would then also pass on to any new offspring. Then, they’d have an easier time surviving too.

With all the light flooding the area, it wouldn’t have been hard to jump her straight to dawn, but she’d refused for the same reason my kids had. All of them wanted time to accrue more training, more experiences, and more depth. Even Snow, who only communicated in thought-sense-emotion bundles, had understood that the richer a creature’s spirit was, the more they gained when crossing the boundary to dawn.

In essence: if you go too quickly and haven’t honed yourself enough, then there wouldn’t be enough of what made you you for the World Spirit to work with. The opportunity dawn presented would be wasted.

Even Bihei wanted to wait. At thirty-six years old, she didn’t feel like she was ready. That was why it was such a wonder Teila had made the leap. But then, she’d been an active hunter for years, going well beyond what apprentices were normally required to do, and she possessed a set of incredible talents to fall back on.

Should she have waited? No, I had agreed with her decision. Our team was often put into positions where the bonuses from becoming dawn mattered.

Should my family continue to wait? Let us just say that they were as stubborn as mules when they wanted to be—no matter how helpful the advice I gave them.

###

I puttered around the longhouse, just enjoying the free time. Any non-hunt days were normally dedicated to training my skills and my magic, and the work could’ve easily filled every nook and cranny of my life if I’d let it. I had to be intentional about simply relaxing.

There was a black walnut storage chest in the corner that I’d been off-and-on building as a hobby project, but it didn’t call to me that day. Besides, even though it was almost finished, I was out of rottenstone—the mixture of oil and decomposed limestone I needed for polishing the wood—and I didn’t want to bother with making more.

I used Yuki to check in with Mouser back at the Glen, but everything was calm there. I asked him to pass along a message to Ikfael that I’d be returning the day after tomorrow.

Teila refused my call; she was apparently in the middle of talking to her parents. I mean, I’d just seen her, but I wanted to know how that conversation was going. The relationship with her family had gotten dicey after my kids and her announced their intention to marry. Which was fair, to be honest—Teila was essentially priceless in a setting like Voorhei, and no matter what my family pledged in terms of a marriage offer, it wouldn’t be enough.

We weren’t so uncouth as to steal her away, so that meant the plan was to eventually merge families. Now that had been an interesting bit of negotiations, and I let myself gloat a little as I thought back on it.

I’d had quite a bit of leverage from being the highest-leveled person in the village, as well as the keeper of a spirit of the land’s shrine, and I used that leverage to make sure all the members of my family were at the same hierarchical level as Miri, Teila’s mother and the matriarch of her family. Mostly, it was to make sure Bihei, Billisha, and Aluali didn’t get bossed around.

Well, as the future head of the combined families, I’d ensure that never happened, but there’d be times when I would be away, and it was always better to set clear expectations from the start. Plus, it was a real treat to hear grown men and women calling my family’s kids uncle and aunt.

I checked the time; it was just after six in the evening. There’d be another couple of hours of sun left in the day. Maybe I should run over to the smokehouse to grab some kalesk for a roast? We’d been well-stocked over the winter and still had a good supply of salt, dried herbs, and dried chilies. Yeah, it’ll be a nice treat for our hard-working children.

###

Some of Voorhei’s villagers considered me invincible, but my family’s children knew better. They’d seen the wounds that Healing Water had later made disappear. After eight years, the only scar on my body was the sunburst over my belly, the place where I’d intersected with a kalihchi bear’s snout after a misaimed blink. I’d nearly died then and many times afterward too.

So it was with a reasonable trepidation that Bihei and the kids listened to me talk about the hierophant’s race and our planned participation in it. I admit I got a little excited describing the history I’d just learned, but the idea of helping to reveal new information about a lost civilization—it was almost like being a documentarian again, except this time I’d be on the ground with the archeologists instead of behind a desk making sure the film crew’s logistics were in order.

Billisha had grown into a practical young woman with girl-next-door features. She’d continued to be the most outspoken of the three and said, “You have that look in your eyes like the time you tried to tame a giant javelina. Nothing we say will stop you, but what can we do to make sure no one gets hurt?”

Hey, that’s unfair, I thought. The only person injured during the Great Javelina War Mount Project was me, and the wounds were easily patched up.

How was I to know that the damn pigs were resistant to the Grace spell? Well, maybe not so much resistant but naturally cantankerous. Every javelina I’d approached was perfectly willing to gore me, even while feeling at peace in my presence. They’d just been more Zen about it, like the act of goring me was an expression of their true, inner selves.

Yuki joked afterward about how it should’ve been called the Great Javelina Self-Actualization Project, but that was neither here nor there—the attempt had been worthwhile, and it’d helped to increase my understanding of my capabilities.

Anyway, back to the conversation… Aluali was stockier now, filled out from the painfully thin days when I’d first found him with the slavers. He said, “The rest of the team will be there to keep him from trying to chew rocks,” Aluali said.

“Yes, this is a truth,” Billisha said, “but I just don’t see the value in examining a bunch of old stones. Why would Mumu let Anya and Weni bring this proposal to the lodge?”

Surprisingly, it was Bihei who responded, “Because every year has been harder than the one before. Whether it’s due to Ikfael’s Boon, our Eight, all the powerful new residents, or a combination of those things—one day we’ll reach a point where we won’t be able to keep up with the monsters being drawn to the village.”

“Is that you talking or your beau?” Billisha asked, half teasing.

For the past couple of years, our Bihei had been seeing one of the new members of the Hunter’s Lodge. The joke in the family was that he’d come for Ikfael’s Boon but stayed for Bihei. Anyway, Aluk was a Level 4 Gray Spear, formerly of the Soldier’s Lodge and a veteran of several skirmishes to the south.

“You’re not too old for me to spank,” Bihei said with a smile. “But to answer your question, it is me. I learn from Aluk, just as he learns from me. We all learn from each other. That is how a family should be.”

“Oh ho… so Aluk is family now, is he?” I asked, looking to deflect some of the attention directed my way.

Bihei blushed in response, and her lips pursed. Both Billisha’s and Aluali’s eyes rounded as they stared at the widow.

After only a beat, Billisha asked, “When?”

“Hold on, I was joking.” The words felt numb in my mouth. I mean, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Bihei was still a healthy young woman. I knew she and Aluk were getting serious, but… marriage?

“In the fall,” Bihei said. “After the harvest but before the Tournament of Masks.”

“Ah, you’ll marry well before us then,” Aluali said. “We have to wait until we’re twenty-one.”

“That’s not changing,” I said automatically.

Aluk was a decent fellow, and I knew from his spirit that he was earnest about his affections. That, and Yuki and I had grilled him to discover his true intentions. I really shouldn’t have been this blindsided…

Inside me, Yuki was doing excited flips at finally being able to talk about the good news, and even Snow was pleased—she looked forward to the new litter that’d come from such a fine pairing.

Eight years had passed since Bihei had lost her spouses and her children. She’d carried the pain of that loss with her every day, but it wasn’t too short a time to find new love, right? I really, really shouldn’t have been this blindsided, yet I was.

All right, listen, it’s not like I hadn’t noticed all the incredibly fit, attractive people surrounding me in the lodge—every one of them was perfectly happy to strip down to nothing in the summertime to swim in the cool river outside the village. My teenage body was well aware, thank you very much, and I was eternally grateful for Yuki’s ability to regulate my circulation system, because I would’ve embarrassed myself countless times otherwise.

My emotions had been harder to control, so for a couple of years—during the worst of it—I had a crush… on Mumu. It’d been probably the single most awkward conversation of both my lives, but I’d wanted to be upfront with her. I had explained that the feeling, while serious, wasn’t likely permanent; that I knew it was probably an infatuation; and that I hoped she wouldn’t mind it too much.

Sometimes late at night, I’d remember that conversation and cringe. For a full month, Yuki had had us dream about it, so that they could study the social dynamics involved. They’d been merciless.

But what could I do? The relationships on my team were fundamental to the person I was. They were also a matter of life and death. We depended on each other, and anything that complicated our relationships was a risk. So I’d chosen radical transparency and likely overcommunicated. If it had cost me my pride, then so be it.

Besides, I’d known that Mumu wouldn’t take advantage of my feelings. In fact, in her own bit of candor, Mumu had explained that her spouses and her weren’t planning to expand their marriage any further. And if they had been, they weren’t interested in me as a spousal partner. I was a brother to them; they loved me for it, but that was all.

So, yeah, the whole thing had been nicely unattainable. It’d all been very safe.

The conversation with my family continued well into the evening, but to be honest, I only half-listened. I was stuck on the feeling of… well, being stuck. Of being left behind by Bihei and the kids who were all growing older as they should be and moving on with their lives.

Yuki sensed my complicated feelings. They came over to wash their qi through me, and it felt like being covered by a warm blanket.

Did you know that I was fooling myself? I asked them.

‘We suspected,’ they replied.

Why didn’t you say something?

‘Would your feelings have gone away if we had? Besides, Mumu was good practice. Next time, you can fall in love with someone for real.’

The realization rolled through me that my crush on Mumu had been like a little kid playing make believe, a toddler pretending to take on adult responsibilities. I… I didn’t think I’d done it on purpose, but I was still hanging on to my old life with Helen.

###

The next morning, Aluk came to visit, looking apprehensive. Well, it was understandable; I’d put him through the grinder before, scouring him for his true intentions toward Bihei. The man was probably anxious I’d do it again.

He needn’t have worried, though. The process the first time had involved getting his permission to use a “deep truth-revealing” treasure, and so the man had already been thoroughly Yuki-vetted.

Alukhei of Ganas Hakei (Human)

Talents: Natural Spearman, Low-Key Qi, Survivor

Nascent: Stained Gray, Discerning Eye

The ex-soldier had been through a lot, some of it honestly soul-crushing, yet he remained a decent man at heart. A part of me couldn’t help feeling relieved that—when I was out in the field—there’d be a warrior left at home to watch over the family.

We sat and had tea, talking about the future. Aluk was estranged from a few distant relatives in Ganas Hakei, so joining our longhouse wouldn’t be an issue. There’d be no stealing Bihei away.

Also, he’d sworn to our Hunter’s Lodge, and that was where he planned to stay. At the moment, he belonged to one of the newer, soldier-focused teams. Their woodcraft was barely tolerable, but when put in the right position, they punched hard.

Aluk was already an experienced qi-magic user. Once Bihei and he were married, and the relationship continued to look solid, we’d share the secret of Yuki with him. I’d have to drag him out to the Glen, though, so that we could say he had a fortuitous encounter.

All of it was doable. Families took care of each other. They changed over time. That was the way of things. Life was change; the thought bounced around my head the whole time Aluk and I talked.

###

The rest of the day, I threw myself into my training, as if the previous day’s rest had been some kind of punishment I needed to atone for. I roped in all the hunters present at the lodge and put them through their paces. It got to the point where word spread to avoid the place.

The newcomers didn’t know any better, and they came despite the warning. I was Ikfael’s shrine keeper, after all. Every one of them wanted her boon.

Weapons forms, duels, small team tactics, large team tactics, stretches, woodcraft—gods but it was glorious and terrible. Like a madman possessed, I pushed them and pushed them. I drove myself until I was too tired to think, until I felt nothing but absolute exhaustion.

###

The day after, I made it rain on the village’s fields, then Snow and I headed to the Glen.