Eight 5.18: Sightseeing Along the Way

Author's Note: Just a warning that the chapter ends on a cliffhanger.

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The next morning’s travels went smoothly. The clouds to the north had moved on, so all we saw were blue skies and a few patchy clouds. Without any powerful creatures attacking us, we could’ve been hiking back on Earth, and I wouldn’t have known the difference, assuming I made allowances for the dolbecs and the superhuman stamina we all possessed.

At midday, I let the Deer God out to journey separately. He gave me an affectionate nudge before leaving, which was weird but not unwelcome. I assumed it was his show of approval for the good work we’d done in Slaughter’s Hollow.

When I rejoined the others, Melwei’s team was just finishing up their meals. Nothing seemed out of place or unusual, but Fala had a smirk on her face.

‘Melwei offered me a spot on his team,’ she sent.

Oh? And what did you tell him? I asked.

Fala kept the amusement she was feeling away from her face. ‘That he couldn’t afford me.’

I almost chuckled and had to turn away to keep the others from seeing the sparkle in my eyes. No, that would be an expensive exchange, wouldn’t it?

Fala ran her fingers through her hair before re-braiding it. ‘Without you, I might’ve considered it, but then… without you, I’d still be tied to the Glen.’

Well, you do have me, I said. All of me, and we’re free to do what we want.

‘And you have me,’ my beloved replied. ‘Though we’re not entirely free. Our responsibilities also drive us.’

There is that, I admit. I paused, testing the next thought before articulating it. We could always choose to become irresponsible.

Fala’s head tilted as she considered the idea. ‘Then you would not be the Eight that helped me defend the Glen, and I would not be the Ikfael who took care of you without the necessary exchanges. The respect for our responsibilities is woven into us.’

A truth, and I feel the same way. It’s just…

‘Last night,’ Fala sent.

I nodded, and I made it seem natural, like me thinking to myself. I didn’t recognize it at the time, but in hindsight, my authority drove me hard. We talked about us choosing to act, but I have to wonder how much… should I call it influence? How much influence our authorities have on us.

‘The World Spirit does not offer anything unwelcome,’ Fala said. ‘Your authority is a crystallization of your choices over time, culminating in becoming a Saint of Water. The same is true for me and my path.’

So it’s me influencing myself? I asked.

‘In a way,’ Fala replied.

And in another way?

Fala sighed. ‘You and I don’t live in isolation. Our authorities interact with the rest of the world—discerning things that may not be obvious to us at the time.’

Yuki had been listening, and they chose to come forward then. ‘Like intuition?’

‘That’s my understanding, though my experience is almost as limited as yours,’ Fala sent. ‘What I know comes from my meditations on the World Spirit, which is, I’ve learned, another kind of influence.’

Yuki withdrew to chew on that a while. And I didn’t have anything else to add. In the past, I might have had a ready response—an impulse to assert my individuality, my agency—but the world, I was coming to learn, was more complicated than that.

Each of us thinking our thoughts, we continued the journey.

###

The afternoon proceeded as smoothly as the morning, and we arrived at our next camp by early evening. The place was a shallow limestone cave in between two waterfalls. We’d had to hike up into the hills for about half an hour to find it.

The entrance was unprotected, but there were signs the camp had been used before—a ring of stones for a fire and scuff marks across the stone floor. They didn’t look recent, though. Maybe a month old? My Uncanny Tracker felt confident about that assessment.

Dinner was venison, just as salty as the previous night’s rabbit, and the accompanying story from Melwei was about a time when he’d apparently been waylaid by a bandit chief who’d taken a shine to him and “asked” the guide to join her family.

Not exactly in a position to refuse, Melwei had lived with the bandits for a season—supposedly in another, deeper cave not far from here—before his allies could find and rescue him.

“Was there much fighting and bloodshed?” Fala asked.

“No, because I let the bandits know my rescue was at hand,” Melwei said.

“Why did you do that?” she asked, her eyes curious.

“Respect,” Melwei said. “They’d given to me, so I had to give it back, didn’t I?”

Butrus spit to the side. “The only good bandit is a dead one.”

“I also used to think so,” Melwei said.

Was the story a lie? Probably, most likely. But what he’d said at the end was true.

###

We held a big party in the dream space that night. Everyone with one of Yuki’s extensions inside them attended. The hilarious thing was that Haol showed the newcomers around. Somehow, because he’d joined the dream space a couple a nights before them, he considered himself qualified. It required Yuki’s intervention to drag him away from the archery range.

Eventually, we clustered around the food and drink—singing songs, dancing, and then later we watched a Diaksha-adapted version of John Wick on a big screen Yuki had created. The movie went over well, though the two-dimensionality of it threw people off at first. They were used to Fala’s water plays and clamored for her to put on a show afterward. Mumu offered to tutor her in the Thousand series of spells in exchange.

Fala, in her Stone Otter shape, graciously accepted the exchange. We moved to the pool then, and watched her create a series of vignettes about our travels—starting with Bashtotwei and proceeding from there.

She recreated Judgement’s Rock, introduced Melwei and his team, showed off the colossus’s footprint, and ended the show with the fight against the spirit king. If it were me, I would’ve toned down the last segment to keep the others from worrying, but things weren’t done that way. Or at least not in the Three-City alliance.

The party’s vibe turned thoughtful after Fala’s play. It was a reminder of how dangerous the deep wilds truly were, which triggered a conversation between Mumu and Tegen about how they could use the dream space to practice against especially troublesome foes.

At which point, Yuki demonstrated how they could portion off a section for individual or small-group use. I made a joke about my mind already being crowded enough, and Haol shot back with how I needed something to fill that empty space of mine.

That eased us all back into a laughing mood, not all the way but enough to delay talking about work until another day.

My teammates left first—they had a hunt day coming up that they needed to be well-rested for. Billisha, Aluali, and Bihei stuck around for another hour afterward, and we just talked while sitting by the fire. Mostly, it was about how their tannery was back in operation, and they were rushing to get ready to receive the kills from the lodge’s upcoming hunt day.

None of my family had questions about the fight with the spirit king, which I didn’t understand at first. If it were me, I’d want a reassurance everything was all right, that the level of danger was within my loved one’s capabilities.

It was Yuki who explained the situation to me. ‘The silvered are like another world,’ they said. ‘The things we’re doing are considered incomprehensible, so most people don’t even try.’

Our family is not most people, I thought in protest.

‘A truth,’ Yuki replied, ‘but…’

But what? I demanded.

‘They don’t understand you, not really, and they’ve each had to come to terms with your willingness to throw yourself into danger. They simply trust you will come back safely every time; it is the faith they hold in their zasha. Any more than that and it would be a burden.’

They would worry, you mean.

‘It would eat their stomachs raw,’ Yuki said.

When the time came, my family left the party with smiles on their faces. They each promised to stop by again, not exactly saying when but soon.

After they’d gone, Fala shed the Stone Otter shape, so that we could take a walk around the grounds while holding hands. Struck by an impulse, I wiped everything away and brought her to one of my favorite spots outside of Portland.

The trail was an easy one, taking us to the bridge overlooking Multnomah Falls. I leaned against the railing to watch the cascade.

Fala came closer so that our shoulders touched. “The farther we walk along the Path to Perfection, the more our lives will separate from those around us.”

“Mmm,” I said, thinking similar thoughts. “Being too close to our loved ones puts them at risk.”

“That and our concerns are different,” Fala said.

“That they are,” I said with a sigh.

A moment later, a part of me couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to be a Saint of Water on Earth. What would these falls teach me?

Which only proved Fala’s point. While I was interested in the artisanship of my family’s work, it didn’t capture my attention like it used to. The everyday details of their lives weren’t as interesting. Don’t get me wrong, I loved them all deeply, but…

“They’re going to die well before you,” Fala said gently.

And all I could do was nod. She’d spoken a truth, after all.

###

The days began to roll into each other. It was the steady rhythm of a back-country hike, accompanied by occasional moments of terror as we avoided the true monsters inhabiting the deep wilds.

Melwei’s team fought when they had to, but only when they were certain of winning. Otherwise, we avoided the dangers, our path snaking across the landscape. There always seemed to be a place to camp, though, and I began to wonder about the number of people smuggling goods between Maltra and the Three-City Alliance. There was a road, after all, and the evidence of so many people who weren’t using it.

On the sixth day out from Bashtotwei, Kana mentioned in passing that there was an outcropping similar to Judgement’s Rock close by. Well, my curiosity got to me, and I asked if it was possible to visit it.

To which, the answer was yes, and we made a minor, twenty-minute detour to a pile of granite shaped like a kite shield.

“We call this paired with Judgement’s Rock, the Sword and Shield,” Melwei said. “Not many people get to see both.”

“Not much reason to, is there?” Kana muttered.

“No,” Melwei replied. “I suppose not.”

The guides humored me as I circled the outcropping, looking at it from all sides. There weren’t any marks indicating that it had been worked, nor were there any signs of animals lingering around it. In fact, nothing stood out as unusual, except for the shape. If there’d once been a tear in the veil between life and death here, it’d long since healed.

“Are there more structures like this?” I asked.

“Aye, more than a few,” Melwei answered. “We use them as navigation markers sometimes.”

“And there’s no story attached to them?” I asked in disbelief.

Melwei rubbed the back of his neck, strangely embarrassed. “There is, but it’s boring.”

Wilaeina chuckled. “Supposedly, an Earth-Touched made them as part of an exchange with a spirit of the land, but the deal was a bad one, so he purposely did a shoddy job of the stone armaments.”

“I heard that the armaments were meant to like this,” Butrus said. “That they’re disguised weapons meant for the colossi who wander the deep wilds.”

“Why in the heavens would anyone want to arm a colossus?” Kana asked. “Or, for that matter, why would the colossi want them? Their natural weapons are dangerous enough.”

Butrus shrugged. “People have done stupider things, why not that?”

The trowel back in Slaughter’s Hollow been a jarring slash across the land, but this shield seemed normal. If I were to nitpick, it was perhaps weightier than the rest of the landscape around it.

In the shield’s shadow, I put my hands on the cold stone, and it felt like I touching the bones of the earth, their existence a maze absorbing my attention. In this communion, I experienced the depths from which the stones came, their primal solidity.

They’d had a fiery birth and would eventually find dissolution, but the two events would be so far apart, the stones might as well be endless.

As deep into the land as I was, I lost track of time.

Yuki nudged me, and I came out of the… meditation, let’s call it. My clock showed that I’d been immersed in the outcropping for about fifteen minutes, yet it had felt so much longer than that.

The guides were spread out, having used the opportunity to take a break. Fala leaned against an elm tree, waiting like the rest.

‘They think you’re searching for natural treasures in the rock,’ she sent.

“No luck, eh?” Kana said. “Nothing of worth in there?”

It took a moment to find my voice. “It’s old granite, and that’s all.”

Kana’s face fell. “Too bad.”

“It is what it is,” I replied. “But I’d like to visit more of these rock formations if possible.”

“You think there’s something of value in them?” Melwei asked. “Gems and such?”

The others perked up, and I noted how their interest sharpened.

“Not in the least,” I said, smiling to defuse the idea. “But if I’m visiting the deep wilds, I might as well see what they have to offer. And besides, I have respect for stones as old as these. There’s much we can learn from them.”

The looks the guides sent each other were clear in their meaning. ‘This one’s a nutter,’ they said.

Meanwhile, I thought, Three is too small a sample. There’s obviously something going on with these outcroppings, and I’d like to know what.

###

By the twelfth day out of Bashtotwei, we knew all of our guides’ quirks. Wilaeina had a habit of folding soft twigs into pretzel shapes. Butrus ground his teeth at night, the spirit around his jaw turning red from the distress. If Tru didn’t have anything to fight for a day or two, she’d drag Kana away from camp to wrestle. Real wrestling, that is, until she pinned him, at which point it usually transitioned into sex. I only knew that, by the way, because she’d offered to wrestle Fala and I, and Kana made sure we both understood the implications before we could agree.

And Melwei—he obviously had his stories, but he also liked to count things. He wasn’t compulsive about it, but it was noticeable. “This is our third oak of this size today. Two more hills to go before we seen another lake, the seventh this trip.” That kind of thing.

When I asked how many times he’d traveled back and forth between Maltra and the Three-City Alliance, I saw him hesitate. “Many,” he said, but I could tell—he knew the exact number.

For most people, the memory of so many trips would blur over time. It was like asking someone how many pancakes they’d eaten over the course of their life. There was no way to answer.

‘Would you like to know?’ Yuki asked me.

No, there’s no use for the information, I answered.

Yuki waited a beat. Then another.

Okay, yes, I’m curious. How many have I eaten?

‘One thousand three hundred twenty-eight individual pancakes.’

Does that include waffles? I asked.

‘No, that’s a separate count. You’ve consumed… one moment…’

I felt Yuki rifling through my memories. They were so much quicker about it than before. Some of that must’ve been from the increases to their Intelligence, and… Ah, there’s their Dog’s Agility for a boost.

‘Five hundred forty-one waffles,’ they said a moment later.

Huh. I always thought I liked them more than pancakes, but that’s not what the numbers say.

‘It was the children,’ Yuki replied. ‘You’d made them for Alex and Daniel, so you of course ate what they ate.’

“Mmm,” I said, remembering.

By then, Melwei had drifted farther ahead. His spirit brightened at seeing another large oak tree. “We’ll eat our lunch under it,” he signed.

###

On the evening of the thirteenth day, the dream space was quiet, with only Fala, Yuki, and I training. Mumu had stopped by earlier to keep her part of the exchange with Fala, but the novelty for the others had started to wear off, so it was just us now.

I was studying a stone representation of the Silent Kill runes, looking for ways to internalize the jumbled, chaotic mess of a structure. Other spell runes had a coherence that eventually made sense after you studied and lived with them for a while. Not this spell. It was like trying to memorize five different spells at once.

Yuki sat on my shoulder, gazing at the spell’s runes alongside me. “What if we turned the shape into a roller coaster? That way you can ride it and feel the turns with your body.”

I laughed. “You just want to see me throw up. It’d be the most intense ride ever.”

“A win-win?” they offered playfully, and my laughter got a way from me.

The sound drew Fala over to check on us. She wore a thin layer of stone that moved when she did. Sections of the armor briefly flickered with light. That was Yuki again, splitting their attention between her and me.

The hidden mind was making progress in reverse engineering the spell Xefwen had used to empower the stone his Earth-Touch talent manipulated. They’d suspected that it required an emulator like my Blink spell, and that seemed to be the right direction so far. A couple more nights, and they’d have this nut cracked.

That was my estimate, by the way. Yuki was more modest and thought it’d take them eight more nights.

“What’s so funny?” Fala asked.

“Yuki wants to turn the spell into a roller coaster,” I replied.

My beloved shook her head at our antics. “That’s another Earth thing, I assume?”

“It’s so much fun!” Yuki exclaimed. “And you haven’t gotten the chance to eat funnel cake yet. We should arrange it.”

“Not tonight,” I said. “Our ratio of celebrations to trainings has been out of whack, and I want to make sure we’re ready for when we reach Maltra.”

“Yes, yes.” Yuki waved off my objection with a pink hand. “But we can spare an hour’s break to visit Yuki’s Adventure Land. None of the rides have lines, and the funnel cake is all you can eat. Plus, there are corn dogs. We know how much you like those.”

“I do like me a corn dog,” I said.

Fala frowned at the idea, which set Yuki and me a giggling. The translation from English to Diaksh had given her a terrible impression of the classic fair food.

“Not real dogs,” I explained. “It’s just what they’re called.”

“Oh, like the screaming frozen milk custard. I liked that one.”

Yuki and I looked at each other, but didn’t dare laugh. Fala saying she “liked” ice cream was the understatement of the century. It was like saying she had a taste for donuts. And she wouldn’t appreciate us pointing it out.

“Sort of,” I said eventually. “That time, Yuki was trying to make a joke about ice cream, a play on words in English that didn’t work in Diaksh. The actual, closer translation is ice cream.”

“Oh,” Fala said. “That makes more sense. This English of yours is a strange language.”

I snorted. “Tell me about it.” And I was thinking about summoning a corn dog for her—it had been a tradition in my family to only eat them at fairs, but traditions only worked if they made your life better—when Yuki went still.

“The watch,” they said, and Fala and I were suddenly thrown back toward wakefulness.

My ears picked up on the trouble first.

“An ambush!” Kana yelled.

And I opened my eyes to see a young man in Camouflage driving a spear into the dolbec’s back.