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

  “Your needlework is terrible, but here’s enough thread and needle to patch up whatever tears.”

  The third woman stepped from behind and slipped a small leather-bound book and a packet of seed into one of the side pockets of the pack. “Enough to learn what you need to know. Plant the seeds somewhere safe and the plants will grow. The book shows how to carve the tools you’ll need to spool it and knit if you need to.” She paused. “I was told there should . . . still be trees,” she muttered as she withdrew.

  “We have little to offer.” A man stepped forward with two beside him. “We carve jewelry, and all of us were told that you would have no use for any such thing on your path.” He sighed.

  “Beads for your hair.” The woman in the back slipped a package into one of the pockets. “Though you never seem to need new ones.” She smiled.

  “I’m afraid between us, we only have these.” The two men revealed a handful of shimmering green slips. “His son and my daughter were allowed to take two leaves each from the forest, and we preserved the leaves in acrylic to take with you.” They each slipped the leaves into the pack.

  Another three approached. “Just a big old bag of those berries you like, lightly powdered so they should last much longer than you eating them.” The man held a bag almost the size of his chest to the boy.

  “Shouldn’t I plant them, like the cloth seeds?” Kechua broke his silence.

  “Oh, you’ll be planting them wherever you go.” The man gave a sinister grin and pointed at Kechua’s stomach. “They won’t need your help. Just remember where you’ve been and they should be growing there. They’re strong and grow like weeds.”

  “These aren’t quite your favorites, but should help.” The woman behind him revealed a bag full of smaller baggies, each of them with a label. “Plant them in safety like the cloth. I would have more, but I was tasked to ensure that not a single weeding seed was in each batch. I . . . failed more than once, but these are pure.”

  “Finally, the knowledge of the plants.” The man behind revealed another red-bound book, slipping it into one of the pouches. “Don’t lose the books, please.”

  “Meat, just meat. Lots of it.” A giant to stand above Talah approached, revealing a sack of dark jerked meat. The man behind him revealed a similar sack, more lightly coloured.

  “Plus bars that haven’t had anything to do with COT.” The third man stifled the urge to spit at the name. “They didn’t know how long it would be, or wouldn’t say, but one of these a day should do you for about six months on their own. Pretty dry, but that saves on weight.”

  “Finally,” Mana said, a pair of women shifting behind her. “Though you don’t scar or would, you will meet those who do. Another book, I’m sure you’ll delight to see. One that will show you what to do with the compressed and distilled herb essences.” She gestured at each of the women beside her, who went forward with silent reverence to gently drop their packets into the pile.

  “And from me. My bag.” She nodded. “Sterilized gauze, antiseptic, medication for the head and for pain; some for fever. Some things to patch and clean and cover those who need it. Just the basics, sadly, but there is little room for extras, I’m told.”

  “This is a bit more special.” Mana held up a flat creature directly to Kechua. “It’s a water bladder, but one not made by any of our hands directly. I am told you will never truly feel its weight, and it can hold enough to sustain you for days, or a week if pushed. This is a gift from those watching in silence, and one they know you will need above all others.”

  The water bladder shimmered with a faint red glimmer, as if encrusted with tiny ruby flecks along its otherwise tan surface. A wooden nozzle cut from the unmistakable pale wood of the forest, paired with a pale handling rope that ran along its side, shimmered between green and blue as the leaves of the forest did.

  “Take these gifts in silence. Take them now and let them sustain you.” Mana spoke as the crescent reformed around him.

  “I give you one gift beside all others,” she began as he tucked the items and red cloth into the pack with care. “You demand a foe, a monster, a mission, so I will give you one.”

  “While you walk in our stead, moving without needing to think on strength and nobility and mercy and charity, spare time for thought. No monsters of tooth and fang or tainted hearts battle us here,” she continued as he slipped the pack onto his shoulders, so light on his back that he was almost driven to run circles around the fire.

  “If we are to meet again in flesh or in spirit, you will give me the answer: What would you do differently here? How would you heal us all; bring that rhythm you feel back to the surface? Never forget that this is what has driven you.” She shook her head, and the crescent dissolved to a halo around the fire.

  “Go. Tell the old man what you told us.” The fire caressed her face. “And when he is finished, tell him he is as welcome to join us as he has always been. I would dearly love to see him one last time.”

  ***

  “What does it mean?” Kechua pushed, daring to lean in close to the fire. The day’s spent light tickled at the gems above, cooling into soothed embers. The staff failed to lash out somehow, and the boy felt the heat of the flames alone, not accompanied by the shaman’s glinting eyes.

  “Soon, they said, but so soon.” The old man sighed, shifting his weight on the staff, and leaned to one of the edges of the tent. “I suppose you’ll be getting answers of a different kind tonight,” he muttered.

  “Everything Mana spoke was truth. A little too positive perhaps; a little glorification of the things we have gained for what we have lost, and yet she has stood strong all this time.” He grabbed one of the skins behind him, digging at another, and upturned them both.

  Kechua shuffled around the fire, thinking to help the old man, but the staff appeared and held him. It lowered directly at his nose, nudging him back firmly, but without striking.

  “What we are about to see is something from before. Not before the invaders came, but before even the first of our people saw light.” His fingers stepped along the naked soil and dug with a pointed stirring motion, loosening the earth. Plunging his hand into it, he produced a dirty glob.

  The earth cracked and fell off it, shedding its caked skin and leaving the deep red pouch, so bright it nearly glowed in the fire’s light. “It is an artifact spoken to each of those who fell to this vigil; something from when this world was made, when the spirits walked and shaped the earth into its path and order.”

  The old man held the pouch in his sight, testing its weight, letting the contents writhe as he wriggled his fingers in savor. The staff fell to his lap to free his hands. The Shaman gently loosed the string fastening the pouch and it trembled open with a relieved sigh.

  “In truth, this is more for you than me. I have been warned of what is to come, and yet still, to breathe within this moment . . . ”

  The fire parted in a circle to frame the man’s hands. A trio of red rocks, neither polished nor spherical nor smooth like gems, coughed forth from the yawning sack into the wrinkles of the open palm. They shimmered and quivered with a thrum that flowed clearly through the man’s arm and into the earth below; to infuse the entire tent into a rhythmic memory. Yet their hold on reality felt tenuous, as if they would dissolve if so much as tapped.

  Their pulse quivered in the heat of the flame, and their heartbeat rose to a song of unmistakable yearning. The old man clutched them within that cleared opening, only to let them slip down into the heart of the blaze as the window chomped down on the gift.

  There was no sense of them falling into it; of them reaching the ground. They shattered into embers, glowing even brighter than the flame’s glare, and fell like gentle snow until they dissipated into the flame. The sacrifice accepted, the bonfire altered its flames from red into brilliant blue. The plume rising from its head turned from a dulled grey into a shimmering white, seeming to cut through the air with an almost musical hum. The smoke took on a new life, sw
irling in on itself, and the surroundings dimmed with the blazing contrast of the forming shape before him.

  The fire itself joined the strange procession, hovering ghostlike off the pit, slowly beating into the now-formed white orb with veins and arteries pulsing. Time slowed to nothing as the shape took clarity, the two of them awed into silence. Kechua felt a chill of recognition rising above the dread.

  “That’s it! That’s the new light in the forest that I saw!” he exclaimed. His words flowed around the orb, a shimmering bluish tinge to the air of his breath.

  The strange vision of the world’s heartbeat struck Kechua’s spirit and he was drawn into it. The slow rhythmic beating again came over him.

  “Woven with truths that I suppose you cannot see. A shame.” The old man’s voice quivered. “For it will never be seen again.”

  His voice cracked, but the old man continued. “The spirits were there to meet you. You were simply blinded to their presence. It is radiant.” He gasped, leaning into the fire. “All of it together; spirits, humans, gods and more. To see it like this . . .

  “The pulsing, the heartbeat—it’s slowing. Even now, I can feel it even in this.” Kechua avoided even the threat of the staff to his shock. “Yes, I suppose you’ve been correct in your meditations. I suppose we all hoped it were not true.” The old man sighed deeply. We did what we could. There is no blame to be had, Mana. Not any longer.” The man’s claw burst through the smoke of the world. The smoke blackened and the illusion dissipated.

  “What did the orb tell you?” Kechua leaned back, the aching in his legs returning.

  “A confirmation of fears; a tickle of forewarning. It sang one thing clear and true: our time is at an end.”

  He took a great breath and bowed his head. “Whether you have listened, whether you have paid attention, I have woven the truth into the lessons.” He paused, and a single eye burned into Kechua across the flames.

  “When the world grows still, the Silent Season shall come. When the fragments of a defeated and rotting race reach up to their deafened gods in a single unanimous voice of desperation, the Silent Season shall come. When our young neglect to learn our history, and our old lose it through fading memory and death, the Silent Season shall come. When justice is but a dream, and truth is a façade, the hands of the downtrodden will drag the Silent Season to us.

  “The Silent Season shall come, and the Blessed will walk forth. Though you, boy, I think you will run. Those like you will walk through fire, or snow, or driving madness of some kind, and wrest it into clarity. In your wake, the world will bloom anew, and in your wake, the world will shift and change, ever taking note.”

  “The world is dying?” the boy asked, and the staff whirled to his face, only to stop before striking, retracting slowly.

  “It is—how would the COT filth put it? A restructure? Right-sizing?” the old man rumbled. “A realignment perhaps. The world itself reaches up for the council of the chosen, of Blessed and those with passions enough to drive them towards the coming trial. It is potential and power, cruel or fair it is not for me to guess.”

  A great intake of softer breath came from the old man, his face seemingly wrinkled more as he spoke. “No, not the end of the world. To us, to those unchosen; to those not gifted or foolish enough, it will seem as a great quake passing over us in a single moment. For you, it could be months, years; far beyond the limits of even the generosity of the provisions you have received.”

  “Then how can I survive?”

  “The season provides. The season has mercy for those who do not surrender; for those whose eyes are ever open.” The old man moved fully from his spot for the first time in the boy’s presence, crawling stiffly on clacking joints over to the right of the fire. “And further, I have another burden to add to the gifts of the elders.”

  “To think that I will be the one to see it wake.” The shaman chuckled, peeling back the skins even further. “What you are about to see is another rarity in this world. It is the last object from a tribe who was a secret even before the invaders came.” He rolled up the mat he had sat on since Kechua had known him, and with both hands, he swirled the dirt with a meticulous picking. “They were a council; a meeting of peoples together as the world began, unified in magic and craftsmanship. Glalih was their home, and a place writhing with spirits and magic.”

  He pushed some dirt aside into a parting heap and returned to his mixing motion in the earth. Kechua lurched forward, thinking again to help, but the staff whipped through the fire with a lightning strike, stopping just at his nose once more. A cough of dirt rose from the earth from the quicksilver change of tasks.

  “Not for you to do. No.” The rhythm of his breath slowed from the frenzied exertion of the moment. “Stay as you always have. “

  The staff withdrew through the flames again and they flickered upwards hungrily, reaching towards the cooling sky above. The hanging pelts shuddered as he dug, eyes glinting with slavering anticipation.

  The digging ended, and he raised above him an ornate scepter, carved of gold and inlaid with jewels. Skulls carved their way across the surface. Diamondine teeth and ruby eyes laughed wickedly and glowed hot within the firelight.

  And yet the shaman continued, tossing the thing aside like it had stirred a latrine moments before.

  He swirled with his hands still and the mounds parted, growing into hills. The pelts shuddered and twitched, caught in the rising bonfire’s flames and licking well above the second rung of the tent, obediently inside the circle.

  Another object flew away, a silvery ingot of some kind that caught the skins of the ground hard. It was sharp enough to tear through them and rest again within the dirt, leaving only a snubbed glittering edge in the corner. Another flew by, a shimmering metal clump that hummed with a pensive tone as it cut through the air.

  The pelts shed the subtlety of their movement and danced, trembling and writhing without bones or any memory of their former limbs. Their eyes rolled, glowing hot and red, another hue from the raging column of flame licking at the gemstones above.

  And with a single, final parting motion, everything fell to stillness. The fire became tame again as the pelts shivered and again embraced death. The two earthen mountains engulfed most of the old man’s possessions. The rhythm of the earth below hushed in wait as the figure of the old man slowly raised the red cloth from its resting place.

  “There are some in this world who would slaughter an entire race at the whisper of what our unworthy eyes are about to see. Even a hint at the existence of something like this could bring peoples to war.”

  He held it high above him, and the red wrapping cloth shed the slumbering dirt in cracks and flakes. Golden flecks fell around the old man like a shimmering hail as he hoisted it for his unseen audience to see.

  He brought it down below the peak of the flames and unwrapped it. A gentle spray of the golden sleet flung and sparked into the air, disinterested wisps awoken and wandering into the shadows

  The cloth fell away, and the hush deepened somehow. It drew even Kechua into the moment, chilling his heart and driving his yearning to see. Yet he could not move. The ground held him tight, the frozen earth below biting at him and numbing the ache in his legs.

  “Truly . . . ” The old man gasped.

  “It is a staff?” Kechua’s fool lungs thawed enough as he caught the edges of the object turning slowly in the shaman’s inspection.

  “In shape, perhaps, but so much more. I can feel an old soul awakening within it, so tired, but yearning to . . . ” The thing trembled as he spoke. “Yes, yes, forgive me.” He sighed.

  It appeared as a deep brown dot through the flames, hoisted directly between Kechua’s eyes; pushed with the practiced hand that had scolded him so very often.

  “Won’t it burn?” He gasped, grabbing at the thing, but it withdrew beyond his futile swipe. The thing trembled and he could almost feel a squeaking shudder cast across the red divide.

  “No, unlike my blacke
ned staff, this will not burn.” The thing rumbled and dove into the fire, waiting in the hot embers for far too long, and yet it rose again to Kechua’s sight without so much as blackened ash clinging to its surface. It trembled and sang again as it cut through the air and struck against the round protrusion of the silvered rock, producing a spark as the ore succumbed a chip, which shot out with all the retreating force of a bullet through the side of the tent.

  Again, the staff squared at Kechua’s eyes, completely unharmed and undented.

  “I . . . are you giving this to me?”

  In another motion that left the shaman gasping for breath, the staff withdrew and the familiar singed medicine staff again stung Kechua across the cheek.

  Again, the staff returned. “While I may hold this, it is not mine to give, nor my place to decide its path. It has a knowing spirit within it, and it has chosen to walk by your side in the upcoming days. Reach out and accept it as a companion, but not as an object; not as yours. Never as yours.”

  Kechua reached slowly, with a trembling nervous twitch in his fingers that only showed itself when he was with Anah. His hand motioned to grip it but pulled back. Instead, he touched it gently, with all the care of meeting a stranger’s dog for the first time.

  Even the gentle touch caused the pulsing beat of the thing to flow through him, trembling and tickling his finger in an indisputably playful manner. It sang and flipped upwards over the fire, balancing on his finger, and catching the tail of the tiny wolfen pelt as it rose, causing the hanging thing to spin furiously.

  It trembled again and bounced off his finger, landing square between his crossed legs and falling into the clench of both his waiting hands.

  The entire staff coated itself in shadows. Brown shapes jutted out, basking in the red light covering it from tip to tip. The glinting figures shuddered before his scrutinizing squint, moving like jagged beetles and wrapping the staff in their fluttering bodies. In truth, it held almost no solid surface to it; no formed grips or even the mark of cloth upon it to guide the hand. Vague lessons of holding a staff returned to him, and he let it rest in his hands, feeling subtle dips in the carving waiting for his grip.