Wanderers of the Silent Season (Heartbeat of the World Book 2) Read online

  He fed the growing child, tossing greater and greater branches onto it, until the thing roared with light. The final confirmation—of how very right it was—was Wolf slinking away from it. He retreated further into the comfort of the foliage, his head sticking leisurely out.

  Kechua laughed and ushered the flames upwards like a mad sorcerer. The flames danced and lapped at his arms but only stung them a little, and waves of heat, warmth, and comfort slammed against his body.

  As the last moments of the day fell, and the stars twinkled above, the fire grew into a bonfire worthy of his celebration; a giant that would be respectable within the circle of Glalih.

  One of the hosf approached him from the shell of the fallen Aspect. In his giddiness, he failed to notice it at first, only seeing something amiss when it came into the light of the fire. He paused, his heart beating fast, the flames roaring with enthusiasm between them. The creature turned its head pensively, the flames making the shadows on the loose skin of its face crinkle and dance.

  The giddiness grew to an unsure nervousness as his eyes locked onto it, its skin hanging loosely as though an animated carcass risen from the swamp. Its vacant eyes were lifeless black voids, rimmed with wounded and weeping red. The drum beneath it rang wrong, a completely different life within, moving and controlling it.

  “What are you?” Kechua gasped, edging back slightly. The corpse tilted its head like an investigating dog but remained where it was. He realized the entire forest around him had grown silent. The sounds of the water no longer reached him, and the leaves no longer hissed their trembling song.

  Only the crackling fire sang as the loose skin of the creature shed, slipping off in chunks like melting fat and slapping with wet, bloody splats onto the ground.

  It was a closed circle, one he hadn’t noticed being drawn as he focused on his fire. Beneath the guise of the hosf, a spectral dog waited, eyes resembling cold rubies. Also a disguise, the shape churned in the shadow. A man stood from the spot, no longer cloaked in his camouflage, but in the stolen pelt of a shadow dog.

  “Rutger.” Kechua spat into the flame and turned to check his pack.

  “They’re just inside the circle,” the shadow said. All but his hands and jaw were concealed with the wrapped shadow and the growing night. He strode slowly around the left of the fire, walking with the staff at his side. The carved wood hummed through the air with a tracing taint of red, its lingering magic whispering with runes and memories.

  “Gathered power, little nibbles and tastes here and there, while I became the staff.” The man’s voice rolled over Kechua. “Now I’m ready for the feast. I sampled the bits here, lapped at the salt, hid from the prying eyes.”

  Kechua watched the man’s progress and carefully leapt to his clubs, rolling to land with them, both drawn to protect himself from the expected blows. Yet Rutger stood there, almost sagely, in his stance.

  That was wrong. The read Kechua got declared the attack would’ve come then. He waited, heart pounding, trying to probe the renewed drum of the man and finding it a chaotic rhythm, bursting with a static chaos the Aspects enjoyed.

  Rutger paced thoughtfully, slowly rotating the staff in the air, letting it hum its faint and groaning song as he led it on.

  “Now I’m ready to kill you in your own home. What better sacrifice than that?” He laughed. The staff tore a path to Kechua’s shoulder, one he managed to catch with the lesser club. It sent him skidding through the dirt, dangerously close to the roaring flames.

  The man attacked, weaving no runes, needing no bursts of blinding sand or flame to trick the boy. The staff came down, aimed at Kechua’s head, and he swiveled just out of reach of it, paying for it with a strike to his shoulder. The skin split immediately, the bone cracking. Kechua bit furiously as he tried to push the staff away—seemingly pushing on the landed hit—leaving the feeling that it gnawed on his flesh; lapping his blood greedily.

  He slunk down, rolling in the sand. The staff’s pressure tossed him in the air and he landed on the firm soil. He bounced back up, attempting a few furious strikes that were slapped away with disinterest, the wood clacking with bursting red sparks as obsidian met the ancient carvings.

  “There is nothing to do, boy. You couldn’t win before, and you certainly can’t now.” Rutger strode forward, pointing the staff at Kechua’s head, the weapon becoming a familiar circle pinprick. “I’ll make you an offer though. Surrender to me now, in full. Give all of this to me and all of your blood and flesh to the staff. Do this, and I promise when the season ends, I will raise your people to a new place of honor and riches. I swear this to you. Your sacrifice taken is one thing, but offered willingly is another thing entirely. I could reshape this country within a year. Even the others wouldn’t be able to slow me.”

  Kechua raised himself up, feeling the rhythm of the ancient staff against his forehead. It no longer whistled or sang, but the familiar rumble was within it still, although controlled; stifled.

  He shed his clubs and furiously grabbed at the staff with both his hands, only to be quickly tossed into the air like a flimsy toy and caught mid-fall on his sides, rolling halfway into the fire.

  “Nope,” the man chastised. He gripped the staff at his side. “Think about my offer. Really think about it. Isn’t that what you want? Isn’t that what should happen? Some justice for a change? The promise is still good.”

  “Nope.” Kechua snagged his clubs and leapt backwards through the flame, his wounded ribs biting him, but he could stand. “You weren’t listening? I’m walking into the spirit world.” He stood there, arms outstretched in the warmth of the fire, dismissing the crackling scream in his shoulder. “I should’ve thought of the circle.” Kechua grinned, feeling the man’s quick footsteps after him. “Makes it easier to hear; easier to do this.”

  He slipped back through the fire and willed the feeling of Glalih to fill it. He stomped his feet in remembrance of the sparse festival times where even Talah was gentle and happy in the dance.

  The staff sung through the air, aimed to bisect him, but he leapt back, his feet within the growing rhythm of their little universe. He thought of Anah, dancing the stepping dance on the day they parted, and the earth below embraced his aching heart.

  This was enough to stagger Rutger; to make him double his chase in the circle as Kechua spun, stomped, and leapt away from him like some mocking rabbit.

  The feeling of the darkness flickered across Kechua’s mind, and he chased it; chased the moment when he danced into his trance to prove his manhood so many nights ago. The forest flickered away from him, enough the staff landed squarely on one of his unprotected knees.

  The taste of pain only drew him into the blackness. Another strike hit his leg, but Kechua’s dance continued. His material body stumbled and grew clumsier with each wound, but his spirit grew in clarity and presence too.

  And there it was, the carved pillar before him, slamming upon his corporeal body again and again, pushing him further into the blackness.

  It ached so, humming a mournful tune in the dark, each strike upon him a squeaking warble. The man no longer held the red tendrils by his jaw, and even the once-loose, flowing threads all poured into him. The pillar itself was a corpse. The true spirit of the relic clung, tied onto Rutger’s very soul. He saw it, a tiny shining beacon on the tip of the pillar, where the history remained uncarved, unknown.

  “I’m sorry,” Kechua whispered, the staff cracking at his head. The carving of him sat in the soil as the season began and flared into his sight.

  “I forgive you.” The man chuckled and wound up for another needling strike at his skull.

  Kechua caught the staff, jabbing it with one of the smaller obsidian barbs of the lesser club. He pushed fiercely against the tip of the staff, and fire poured outward from the wounding hole.

  “What are you? How could you?” Rutger snapped back and fell behind the fire. He furiously tossed flaming runes as Kechua limped towards him. The runes scorched the boy’s f
lesh, but his pain was washed away in the half light of the spirit world.

  “There’s only one spot unwritten on the staff.” Kechua spat blood with a little chunk of bone. “Takes a carver to make a mark, I think.” He grinned, closing in. “I wasn’t apologizing to you.”

  “Damn it!” The man backed into the edge of the circle and hastily swiped at the edge. “There! No more circle for you to control, damned boy! Time to face me without cheating!” he roared and furiously traced a rune in the ground.

  The man moved so slowly, Kechua’s soul could feel every moment; could savor and act with full knowledge as it passed. He felt the forest around him again, the rustling leaves; the chill night air. He saw all the created souls within his mountain, his throne, and felt the tall stone walls around them. He even felt the sleeping humans below, and he couldn’t help but smile at the feeling of Erta shyly approaching their camp.

  “It’s all my circle,” Kechua whispered, grinning with eyes closed. He flickered between the black forest and the flame-painted night. He moved through the thrown flames, the rocks tearing through the ground to rip at his flesh. He stepped fully in the spirit world and arrived at the man, a stream of furious biting red vomiting from his desperate mouth.

  “You can’t have it! It’s mine!” the man screamed. Kechua’s hands rose to grip the staff, both shining with white.

  “It was never yours. It was never mine.” He shook his head, and his fingers ripped into the cut hole in the unwoven history of the staff. He fell fully into the spirit world, and he tore the pillar into two. The two histories etched upon one another, cracked and faded into falling red ash as he tore downwards. An ocean of protesting red screams rose in a tide of wrath from below, swallowing him as he descended into the trembling blue sand.

  In the end, he sat in the dark—the pillar and Rutger gone, the burning light at his back, and the glowing sphere before him.

  Red tendrils loosely gripped at his hand, playfully gracing his fingernails. More and more threads flowed from the ashes and mixed with his forest’s sand, wrapping around his arm with a warm embrace. He could feel the joy of the thing, the acceptance of him, and he shared that joy; the feeling of being deemed worthy.

  Only something was woven with it. The red was ancient and rusted, sincere and powerful beyond measure. It mended his broken body into full life once more, silencing the pain, but the lonely feeling grew.

  He let it pool on his hands. He felt so mighty, he could turn the season by the ear; he could ride into it and change the world for the better with ease.

  Yet the little spirit residing in the staff ached, used by so many; treated well by so few. Slept for so long, hiding and waiting.

  “No,” the words flowed out of him with bubbling blue. “No,” he repeated, them spewing out in a cloud. He raised his hands and turned to the burning light. “I feel your pain; your yearning for an end.” A wall of force pushed at him, denying him the right to turn to the light, so he struggled onto the sands, smearing blue as he clawed his way to the light.

  The staff’s energy chirped curiously, flowing around his arms, and gave a regretful feeling. He shouldn’t continue; couldn’t. He felt a desperate spark there too, the fainted white fleck of hope.

  He clawed furiously and was flung sideways, but his progress retained. His gaze was forced back to his prickled orb, but he made distance and the burning increased.

  A gentle hand landed on his shoulder again, stilling him; righting him. “Alright,” a voice whispered from his left. He raised his hands wordlessly, the light tearing at his back. He lifted them as his arms screamed. The red strands stretched from his arms, trickling with such a wash of joyous relief that it made the burning pain nothing. A gentle sigh flowed outwards, until the last lingering strand of red departed from his arm, twirling around with an almost sentimental feeling.

  Then it was gone. The hand remained on his shoulder, and the voice gently continued, “Do you want to go too?”

  “No.” Kechua’s hands slumped to his sides.

  “You may not have another chance.” The kindness in the voice lowered to an aching sadness.

  “No, I want to go on.” Kechua shook his head. “Thank you.”

  The hand released him, and the forest slumped back into its normal form with an elastic snap.

  A hand tugged at him, yanking his spirit back into synch with his living self. He was again aware of the material world and the black forest at once. To his delight, Anah smiled at him, jagged and perfect. She raised him to his feet, and for once, he led the dance.

  “Now, that was an uncommon thing,” she began, but he silenced her avatar and cherished their steps together.

  “And what’s this dance called?” She laughed, her form glowing red from the flames beyond her world.

  “It’s new.” He looked in her eyes, feeling the words catch in his throat.

  “I like it, but it’s a bit predictable.” She giggled, following him with an unfortunate clumsiness, her naked feet scraping against his as he moved them in the rhythmic step.

  He led her in his makeshift dance, swaying with her gently a moment, just looking into her eyes. She stopped him before he could land a kiss. “Nope.” She giggled. “It won’t work. Would break it all; chase the magic away. You’ll have to just be happy with this much.”

  “It’s enough.” He grinned and twirled her away, holding her hand and stomping the rhythm.

  He stomped with her on the shivering blue sand, moving around the orb, dancing in time with its pensive heartbeat. He led her in its rhythm, intertwining it with the movements and timing he had learned for Mana’s ceremony, and gave the hidden village a show upon the shadows below.

  He lost himself, reaching to forget it all, to embrace the rhythm again; to celebrate the spirit world before him in the rawest sense. He moved with whatever she was—illusion, memory, a trickster god in disguise—and took it as a gift.

  Thump, thump, thump. The rhythm flowed through him; the rhythm pumped his heart. His feet stomped, pounding around the glowing orb.

  Thump, thump, thump. There was a sound in his heart, not his ears. It sang, chanting and melodic. It was the chanting song of not just twenty-three tribes united, but all of them rising from the globe itself. More tribes joined the chorus, their words lost into a mish-mashed chaos, until a final song joined in, coming with a chiming sound about it.

  Thump, thump, thump. The drumbeat of the world; the song of the land echoed in his heart and mind, piercing into the night. He lost his body. He became the rhythm. There were shapes, illusions, to his shadowed and frenzied mind. They were men, taller and broader than he, their bodies aged but filled with a strength beyond reckoning. They were draped with the hides representing the totem spirits—the bear, the buffalo, the coyote, and the wolf. They took places in synchronized patterning to his, dancing not to his lead, but dancing to the ancient memory of the old world.

  Thump, thump, thump. The dance was frenzied, seemingly endless. There were other totems, further out of the circle. Some were recognizable, but most were strange beings beyond his memory, and yet so familiar.

  Thump, thump, thump. It was the spirit world itself, the forest replaced by circles of the men; of the spirit beings. They all danced to the rhythm of the earth. They all felt the chanting song of the earth. There were circles of creatures—generations lost in time, forms forgotten—and yet they existed; moved on through time. They had welcomed him into their dance, and he was with his second people, dancing in the darkness of the spirit world.

  The dance stopped, Anah’s arm stilling his frenzy into calm.

  He froze, his heart chilling back into the normal rhythm. “I’ve walked so far, but I still don’t have an answer.” He held her, speaking to Mana but not wishing for Anah to disappear. “I still don’t understand.”

  “What’s to understand?” Anah giggled. “You learned to come here of your own will. That’s an uncommon thing. You gave rest to an ancient soul, and that’s even more uncomm
on.” She gave a sad bob of her head.

  “What was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to learn?” His voice trembled. “Was I supposed to take the staff’s power?”

  “You were supposed to be interesting.” Anah’s proxy sighed. “What’s the thing they say? To please the Ushers, to gain their favor, you must either do what they expect with perfection, or must do something surprising that catches their attention?” She giggled gently. “We’re tired of seeing what we expect. We’ve been fat on sacrifices; seen all the ritualistic nonsense. We have our own questions, and we are all hoping that this time, things will be different. The world’s changed so much since the last time, more in the last thousand years since the early days of the rebels. But what does it mean? We need to see impressive things, new things, but to really see what you can do, we have to be detached observers.”

  “Was it enough of worth then?”

  “The staff wanted to see, I think, in its own way. In the old days, one like you would have stormed out with it gripped tight, studied it for days before riding out, and struck the very sands into your will. You could have savaged Cruelty of Earth with it, could have washed it in blood of those you chose to help. You could have singlehandedly ended the season within a week’s time. Yet instead, you remained meek, and in the end, you chose mercy for an old soul.”

  “So you’re disappointed. You think I did the wrong thing.”

  “You only know your patterns, boy.” The shaman’s form stepped out of the dark, beyond the orb, his entire form shifting and wrinkling in the red of the flames from the living world. “You’ve never seen what was in front of you, can’t crack it into your head.” His haggard voice melded with the noble waves washing over him. “Thought your eyes could see truth. Perhaps not.”

  “That’s the sad truth, young Kechua.” The warm voice flowed out from beyond the orb’s light. “The most terrifying thing we could tell you: We just don’t know any longer. We are expressions of the desires and fears of people and customs long dead. Yet you look to us for guidance and judgement we cannot offer.”