Chapter 12 - Part III

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Well beaten game paths of roots and hard-packed soil had long ago given way to steep, exposed terrain.  Keubroc had to tread carefully over rocks and loose sand.  He was in his element on the field of battle, not on glorified piles of stony rubble.  Too often he would have slid into a messy death had he not been clinging on to boulders and grabbing twisted tree branches that stuck out in seemingly random intervals.  He was glad at least that the waxing major moon set the treacherous hillside aglow so he could find life-saving outcroppings and holds in the rocks.  The city woman, Reiba, must not have been struggling, since she maintained her distance, but as to how, Keubroc could only guess.

The woman still hid far too much to be trusted, and in honest moments with himself, Keubroc suspected she would hurt the cause more than help it, with her rash behavior.  White Feather had placed far too much trust in her, and he surmised he might end up with a knife in the back for his efforts.

In love, sorcery or with the arrow or blade, a woman trusted is a man betrayed. Keubroc thought of the old adage to himself, but not without mentally noting that whatever her politics, Reiba was making herself useful at the moment.  But this creature, this gegleth, he could not make sense of.  He couldn't even begin to fathom how long these creatures had been co-opted by the Empire, nor what information they might be giving to her wisdom.  It worried him.  He'd had to find a way to inform White Feather or at least someone else of the Hawks of Chosen.  But White Feather chose the time and place to meet him, not the other way around, and few Hawks gave freely their true names.  Keubroc had no idea who else might be his ally, and who his enemy.

What he was sure of was that the former Lady Archne was not.  At least, though it appeared their goals might align, whomever her friends were, they weren't the Hawks.  Keubroc had visited Reiba at the Archne Estate to find out if she might join their ranks.  Even now, after all they had been through with Vaughn, he couldn't give White Feather a clear answer.

She's a very smart whore, isn't she.  Reiba had taken to those throwing daggers he gave her very quickly.  And for a woman who had never stepped out of Eirdred, she was adapting to the new environment quite well.

But she could also be very stupid.  Impulsive even.  He did not know much of women for sale, but he found it difficult to comprehend how she had managed to be so successful in that life.  Seduction is normally thought of as a subtle art, yet he'd not seen a moment of discretion from her.  She would not have lasted long in battle.  he thought, harking back to his memories of the Three-Pronged War.  The gegleth must have gotten suspicious because one night it had left a primitive pit trap in its wake.  The injury she sustained when she fell in was minor, but it was enough for her to chase down the gegleth and put a gash on the creature's face.  Keubroc had caught up and stopped her, yelling at the blueish bug-man to run away and seek safety.  Now instead of heading in the direction of Pho-Boteth, a relatively flat journey, the creature veered due west and up the imposing ridge of sky scraping mountains.

It had been her idea to split up and maintain at least the illusion that Keubroc chased Reiba, and not the creature.  It was a good idea, if only he could trust her.  Somehow, she could follow the gegleth's travel path.  That was a mystery still needing to be solved if he did find a need to remove her.

He was still considering the woman when he heard the struggle.

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The sound of heavy panting - a product of the steep climb and the thin mountain air - was soon accompanied by a tired face, to the surprise of only the gegleth.  In unison, their heads covered in blue-black chiffon shifted slightly to face Keubroc, by habit, as their visual senses told them no more about the visitor than they already knew.  The light of the waxing major moon illuminated the pair, but Keubroc found no recognition in their covered faces.

Reiba, daggers, one in each hand, crouched like a coiled spring.  From her side sprouted a small throwing dagger and a small blossom of blood, and Keubroc realized that her stance was merely for show.  The next blow would be the last, and she would have little means to defend herself.  She faced the male of the pair though Keubroc's arrival had stayed both of their hands for the moment.

"The other is here!" Anita screeched in an even high pitch in fluid Yibouhese that bore an uncustomary coarse accent, baring her teeth in aggression.

"They can see!" Reiba said to Keubroc forcefully, "They are not blind!"

Frozen still, he coughed out to Reiba in the tongue they both knew, Eirdren, "Where is the creature?"

"He is in one of those ruins.  Don't underestimate these two.  We need to get through them to get the creature."

Though their eyes were hidden beneath their headscarves, he made a gesture of open palms all the same.  He lay his short blade down, slowly, and the steel clinked against the bare rock.

"What are you doing!?" Reiba yelled, her voice incredulous with a feeling of betrayal.

He did notice that it was only at this moment that the female relaxed, ever so slightly, but he said bluntly, "We both serve her Wisdom.  I see no cause for violence." he responded in Yibouhese.

Davin and Anita cocked their heads to each other in confusion, as if to simultaneously defer to each other to make sense of the situation.  If Reiba understood the language of Her Wisdom, she did not appear to absorb his words and remained in her hobbled defensive stance.

"Capture this woman.  She is responsible for the death of Vaughn bei'thal and will stand before the Light of Heaven for her crimes." he ordered, mustering the commanding spirit he once embodied in warfare.

"We are revealed to an outsider." Anita whispered, horse from her prior screams.  "We know this one, Zaexyl, of house Archne.  Formerly Reiba, courtesan and madam.  The order is clear.  Those who are not to know, when come to know, must die with the knowledge." Davin nodded and Anita turned to Keubroc with a louder voice, "Your request is impossible."

"What benefits the empire is to have her live.  You say you know this woman, then you know the trouble she has caused.  We cannot get answers of her crimes from the dead, but alive?  That is is a far more useful proposition."

"We do not know you." she said, practically sniffing the air around them, searching for a familiar scent.

"You do not need to." he did not so much ignore the question as recognize that his answer would not have satisfied them anyway.  His name was a mere collection of sounds holding no meaning.  But he had the sense that there were a collection of sounds they did long to hear.  More importantly, hands still open, he reached into his pack and produces a sack of linen cloth, the same sack that had once held the provisions of the dead bei'thal.

Keubroc was gratified in a slight tilt of the heads of the man and woman before him.  "This we know." Anita snatched the sack from the SecondSword and sniffed it, taking in the scent of cheese, acorn pancakes, and Vaughn bei'thal.

Her face perked up, like a dog hearing its master's call from far away.  "You say he is dead?" Anita asked methodically as if reading off a mundane list of banal questions.

"I was witness to the deed.  He is dead."

"Then he cannot command us anymore." replied Anita without emotion.  "And you are not bei'thal, but you have said their title."  She drew a small dagger.  "Davin, remind me of our first mission."

"Unseen, unheard, unfelt.  And to those who do, unmerciful."

"This is disobedience," Keubroc yelled, but he made no move towards his weapon.  His heart beat threatened to leap out of his chest, but he suppressed it with a calming exhale. "Your master, Vaughn bei'thal, pursued this woman to bring her before the Light, and you will make his effort be in vain?    You are defective bei if you cannot follow simple orders."

"You do not command us.  Only the bei'thal." Anita gritted her teeth in a display of of agression, but Keubroc kept his gaze at her strong and resolute.

"For failing your master, will be flayed, striped of everything, bare to your soul, your own masters will crush what is left of you to make fodder for beasts.  You know this."

"This has already come to pass.  Your threats mean nothing."  she responded, but nevertheless she stayed her hand,  "You do not smell like bei'thal."

"Not yet."

Anita froze, caught in a quandary where the tools she needed to decide friend from foe were stripped form her long ago.  Tension hung thickly on the cold night air and a slight breeze through the abandoned village produced a whistling noise that reminded Keubroc how inhospitable this place was.  After a long pause that could easily be misinterpreted by others for deep thinking, she finally re-sheathed her dagger.  "Very well.  We will not kill the one who sounds like bei'thal.  We will let him finish his service to Vaughn bei'thal."

"I'm not sure." Davin responded softly, but his hands moved to the knives slung around his waist and tapped them gently.  "The man must die.  The woman must die."

Unexpected words from Davin caused Anita to turn to her partner, "You are not sure?" she repeated with an echo of accusation that was interrupted by the sound of crushed pebbles beneath the clawed feet of the gegleth.  He slowly tiptoed out of the abandoned house he had been hiding in.

"Tkkt tkkt," his antennae rubbed together, drawing attention to himself from Keubroc's intense, darkly lined sandy brown eyes.  His voice, much more composed now, flowed smoothly with a measure of confident charm in Yibouhese.  "The Archne is dangerous.  It should be done to not trust the Archne.  The Archne is not to be trusted.  Such a female even the drones would not take.  But the Nüdwuob was friend to the bei'thal Vaughn."

"Return to your hiding insect," Anita venomously spouted, "When it is safe, we shall call for you.  You have the same duty as we."

"This one has no fear, for the others have already seen." he said, but he retreated nonetheless.

Keubroc used the opportunity to command the conversation once more. "I shall take the prisoner, I shall take the creature, and if you desire further orders from our masters, then we will travel together to Pho-Boteth, where the bei'thal will direct you bei.  For that is what you are, isn't it?  Bei?"

Chapter 12 - Part II

"Someone is near." Davin's ears perked up as he scanned for the alien sound of sentient life miles away.  His compromised ears poked out from underneath the scarf that covered his charred eyes and he inhaled deeply, seeing if his nostrils could provide more information.

"He comes from the northeast.  Quickly.  Panicked." Anita relayed to her companion, "He is coming here.  A gegleth." and she turned her back to him once again, humming a forgotten tune as she entered one of the hut ruins and proceeded to thrust her hands into a long empty basin of stone that once served as a vessel for cool, crystal clear water from the nearby springs.  Her pretend basket of berries she submerged and retrieved several times, clearing the imagined debris to prepare them for cooking or drying.

Then suddenly, she stopped.

"Two more.  One soldier in armor.  One young man, or maybe a woman." Davin acknowledged her report, though he could not verify her claim with his own ears yet.

"How much time until they arrive?"he asked, as he followed a whim to go through the motions of cleaning the carcass of a mountain goat that had existed only in his mind.  If he were alone, he might have resisted, but the allure of falling into their old routine was too powerful with her going through the motions in the kitchen.

"At least 8 hours.  Considering the gegleth will not travel during the heat of day, I do not think it will arrive until past midnight." she continued to shake the water dripping from the basket until she was satisfied that not one drop of imaginary water was left.

Davin stopped his motions and looked at her in her trance.  "What should we do about it?"

"I don't know."

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Heavy panting cleanly echoed off of the sweeping granite walls of the alpine valley.  The major moon was high in the night sky, giving off a radiant glow of moonlight on the silent ruins of the old Woodswalker village.  Minutes later, the blue antenna of the gegleth could be seen.  The two bei had been waiting for him, silently laying where once their bed of down and fleece stood.  The straw roof long gone, their dried out eyes pointed directly to the stars, though they could not see them.  Sound, touch, smell and taste could not travel so far from the heavens.

They got up to greet the gegleth in the village's path.  They could sense the sweat beading from the creature's forehead.

"He smells strangely." Anita whispered in the ear of her fellow bei.  "Where is his usual scent of lilac blossoms?"

"It is fear." Davin replied simply under his breath, "But I have never smelled the lilacs before."

"They all smell of lilacs."

"I see."

They were interrupted by the gegleth when he approached them.  "The woman follows." he said in desperate, scratchy and broken speech,  short of breath.  Not at all the charming voice Anita was accustomed to hearing.  "She was captured.  Escaped?  Unknown.  Tkkt tkkt."

"Sit down and rest insect." Davin ordered though his voice was devoid of condescension.

The gegleth looked at the two bei with a measure of offense but said nothing.  The gegleth creatures and the bei often crossed paths in their service to the bei'thal and the Empire, but never had cause to interact.  Yet this was the only option available to him now.

"You are the gegleth who dug the tunnels at the Archne Estate?" Anita accused, frustrated perhaps at her inability to distinguish the smells of the gegleth with his mask of fear.

"Tttcchhkkt." he sighed, "No... not all gegleth look alike kind lady."

"It does not matter.  We cannot see." Davin informed.

A pause between the three of them lingered uncomfortably for the gegleth as he anticipated further questions, but got none from the two.  They waited patiently for something to happen, but seemed unable to serve as catalyst.

"Chtrttcht is the name.  Humans cannot say it, so call this creature Chet."

"Your name is not interesting." replied Anita before the creature finished the last syllable of his sentence.

"The bei'thal no longer act in shadow.  This has been learned for the bei'thal."

This sentence finally won the attention of the two bei, though the victory was only momentary.  "Do you have orders from a bei'thal for us?"

"No.  The Vaughn bei'thal ordered a return to the Pho-Boteth place.  But shouldn't the one who is yourself concern themself with the news this one brings?"

"That information is useless to a bei.  Tell it to a bei'thal.  Why have you not returned to the city?" Anita questioned.

"The Archne follows."

This also won another few moments of undivided attention, but the bei did not know what to do with this information.

"The Archne comes here." he added.

"We know." Davin arched his head to better hear the two humans in pursuit.

"I cannot hear its voice.  Where is its guiding song?" Anita whined to her counterpart.

"The Silent Scholar cannot hear us." Davin reminded her.

"And we have no bei'thal.  We cannot help you insect."

"Perhaps you will stay in this house." Davin pointed to one of the ruins.  He, like Anita, had no ability to plan what to do, but his instincts told him that if he and his former love put themselves between the quarry of the Archne woman and Zaexyl herself, a situation might resolve itself.

"She is here." Anita noted without warning.

Chapter 12 - Part I

Grey skies had filled the shallow valley leaving smooth sloping walls of granite feeling robbed of life and dull.  High above jagged windswept ridgelines and peaks, the sun usually bore down with burning intensity, though the ambient air could rarely be considered warm.  Blue-green mosses and native grasses clung tightly to the greys, pinks and tiny crystals of the imposing rock, lest they be swept away by frigid alpine winds.  Gusts of biting air chilled Anita to the bone, even while thoughts of the ice and snow of ColdTide celebrations of the coastal folk were still a minor moon away.

It was already much later in the season than they would have stayed, even if any of them had still been alive.  Somehow, she knew that seeing the village this time of year would have comforted her.  The two rows of granite houses had long since been washed of the blood that stained them, the ash of burned straw roofs had not lasted long in the wind.  She could have pretended that nothing was different, that her people were simply in the hollows below, in their iconic houses of the madrones, maples and giant firs; the lifestyle from which the Yibouhese had named them.

IunDzuehr - Woodswalkers - they foisted the name on them just as they had done so with Anita and Davin when they began the process to become bei.  Anita could no longer remember her name, nor that of her people, but in a different era they had called themselves Nedjleen.

The Yibouhese, like those of Eirdren, and most coastal peoples, celebrated time with the phases of the moons and the swelling of the oceans while the Nedjleen saw the passage of time with the coming and going to the chill winds and ice, and their annual migrations back and forth to their alpine and wooded homes.  As such, the coastal peoples prepared in these months for the ColdTide celebrations - the one night when the major moon was highest in the sky and the minor moon could not be seen so long as the sun was gone from the sky.  But for Anita's people, the festive time of Descent was over, and when the sun fell, the constant moonlit sky was an ill omen of hunger on the way.

They had been an old people - well older than the clever agrarian folk living further down in the valleys and plains who eventually built a shining city of marble white.  While it stood at the crags at the base of mountains, Woodswalkers had been pushed further up the hollows and further from the mighty firs their ancestors once used for homes year-round.  For hundreds of years, though she encroached further and further, Yibouh did not bother them in the summers when the Nedjleen inhabited this Alpine refuge.  Here, they collected the blueberries and mountain cranberries that grew in the meadows and glacial bogs, and caught fat little rodents called marmots or the occasional bear - all of which they dried and cured to bring down in the winter months for as long as it would last them.  Here they were allowed to make a life for themselves, until little more than a decade ago.

Anita strolled though the forgotten village, as she did when she was still a maiden.  Her hands extended out, as if she were carrying a basket heavily laden with sweet berries of the summertime, though she neither recognized her actions, nor could she recall those happier days even if she had.  The blindfold about her head whipped in the winds like her headscarf might have once, but the familiarity had long since been scorched away.

They always seemed to come back here though.  As they awaited the call of the Silent Scholar, Anita and Davin usually wandered up to this rocky grave of the Nedjleen, ever since one particular mission saw their bei'thal slain and them aimless without instruction.  Somehow Davin had found enough articulation to request these visits whenever they were unoccupied, and while most of the bei'thal feared desertion or violence from an unguarded bei, the Silent Scholar held no such concerns.  It knew too well that a lost dog wants nothing more than to go home.

Davin made mental note as the woman who was once his bride shuffled down the sandy path.  She did not know what she did, but for him, feeling her existence there was his only tenuous connection to life.  He felt a desire to pick up his spear and join his fellow scouts, the arms and lets of the Nedjleen, in stalking fish in the glacial lakes, and while the knowledge that his fellows were dust saddened him, it was a feeling.  In a reality of numb, the sadness was addicting.