Honor and Blood

by James Galloway

  "I've been up since about midnight," he replied. "This many Selani so close make me nervous. I couldn't sleep."

  "They're not going to bother us, Tarrin," she chided.

  "Tell that to my suspicious nature."

  "Attention, Tarrin's suspicious nature," she called in a booming voice. Tarrin looked at her, and saw her grinning like a naughty child. "You have nothing to worry about. The Selani will not bother us. That is all. Return to your prior paranoid delusions."

  Tarrin gave her an unamused look, then went back to studying the cloud. "That's the Cloud Spire, alright," Sarraya said when she looked in the same direction. "A cloud like that, out here? Can you say magic?"

  "I figured the same thing," he sighed. "It's possible that the object I'm sensing has something to do with that cloud. There's a chance we may do some spire climbing, Sarraya. Just so you know."

  "That's not going to be easy, Tarrin. Maybe impossible. Denai and I were talking last night, and she says that the spire goes up into that cloud. It may be longspans high."

  "Then I'll just be climbing a while," he shrugged. "I can't leave without finding out if it's the Firestaff, Sarraya. I'll kick myself for ten years if we pass it by, and then have to turn around and come back here to get it."

  "Why don't you let me go look?" she offered. "I can fly, and the Aeradalla won't see me."

  "Fine. Just tell me how you intend to find it, and you're free to do it yourself."

  She looked at him, then laughed ruefully. "I get the point," she acceded. "I wouldn't be able to find it, would I? At least not like you could."

  Tarrin nodded. "If it's up there, I could point to it. I'm hoping that we don't have to do that. There's a chance it may be some relic the Selani are holding. Or it may be hidden in the Cloud Spire itself, without me having to climb to the top. I know it's somewhere around the spire, but not exactly."

  "Well, we can hope," she agreed.

  "Where are Var and Denai?"

  "I heard Denai giggling as I flew up here. It's no stretch to imagine what they're doing."

  "Then we'll leave as soon as we eat," Tarrin said. "Leave them behind."

  "They'll catch up with us," she warned.

  "I know, but it'll give them the sense that I'm not going to wait for them. And when we leave them at Gathering, they'll look back on this and realize that I warned them."

  "Fine. What's your pleasure today?"

  "I'm feeling evil. I want pancakes. And syrup."

  Sarraya laughed. "One confused cook, coming up," she said grandly.

  Tarrin did just as he warned, left Var and Denai behind. They loped north at a smooth pace, Tarrin continuing Sarraya's education in Sha'Kar. But that wouldn't be for much longer. Sarraya had been cheating with her magic to make sure the lessons held in her mind, and she was nearly fluent now. He was only teaching her some of the more archaic words, and some of the more obscure rules of grammar. Sarraya was competent in Sha'Kar, but Tarrin was a perfectionist. It was silly to learn a language without being able to think in that language.

  Var and Denai caught up with them about lunchtime, as Tarrin and Sarraya stopped on a curious boulder that had a flat top. They were sitting atop it, as Sarraya amused herself by frying conjured eggs on its surface. Tarrin didn't even notice heat anymore, heat or cold. It took something like watching an egg fry on the surface where he was sitting to realize that it was just that hot. The flat boulder certainly was like a natural skillet, sitting out where the sun heated it like a fire.

  "Tarrin, why did you leave us behind?" Denai demanded from the ground. She knew better than to try to get up there with it being so hot.

  "Because I didn't feel like waiting for you two to finish playing," he said pointedly.

  Denai blushed.

  "How far are we from the Cloud Spire?" he asked.

  "If we move fast and don't stop as often to rest, we can get to the outside edges of Gathering by sunset," Denai told him. "We could reach the spire itself just a few hours after that."

  "The Gathering is that big?" Sarraya asked.

  "When all the clans assemble, it takes up some space, Sarraya," Var said mildly.

  Tarrin looked towards the north. The cloud was hidden in the wavering haze of the midday heat, but his sense of that object told him exactly how far they were from it. And the distance was about as Denai said it was.

  "Then you two had better sit down. I'm leaving in just a little while."

  And he did. Var and Denai had to scramble to their feet and rush after him as he loped away from them, towards the north. And the pace he set could be called murderous. Var and Denai could run with him, but he'd pushed them over the last few days, and their endurance was playing out. They were breathing heavily after about two hours, and they began to lag behind after three. He ran them for about another half hour, and then pulled up for a short break. Not for them; he wanted water, and it was hard to drink while running. Var and Denai caught up with him a few moments later, and both knelt down and tried to catch their breath. "What's your problem, Tarrin?" Denai panted.

  He said nothing, just looking down at her with his tail swishing back and forth at a stately pace.

  Then he was off again. After another half hour, they spotted a Selani tribe on the move some distance east of them, and Tarrin slowed down to study it. Selani were nomads, and they carried everything with them on their backs or on tamed chisa. Chisa were the only thing close to pack animals that could keep up with the fleet-footed Selani. They ran along in a disorganized column, with the herd animals bringing up the rear and a contingent of Scouts ranging ahead. Tarrin saw that even the children ran, though the youngest were either carried or were riding sukk. The ability to keep up with the tribe while on the move was considered to be the first step to adulthood.

  "My clan," Var said, shading his eyes and peering in that direction as they ran. "Not my tribe."

  "Our clan," Denai said archly. "Who leads them?"

  "A tall one with his head bare. He has a scar on his cheek."

  "That's the tribe of my sister's husband," Denai remarked. "Should we join them?"

  "If you want, go," Tarrin said bluntly. "I'm going this way."

  "Then that's the way I'm going," Var said calmly.

  "Oh well," Denai sighed, and they picked up the pace again.

  The cloud he'd seen in the horizon only got bigger and bigger as they approached it, and for a little while he wondered if it took up the entire sky at the spire. Sarraya took a look at it and estimated that it had to be absolutely humongous, longspans and longspans across, probably even further across than the Great Canyon was wide. His sense of the location of the object became more and more precise as he approached it, allowing him to get more accurate with his estimation of where it resided. But he was still too far away to discern if it was on the ground on on the spire.

  They spotted more and more Scouts as they penetrated the area reserved for Gathering. There seemed to be a Selani watcher on every rise, on every spire, and hiding behind every scrubby bush or large rock. They didn't bother them, but their presence unnerved Tarrin just a little bit. The idea of strangers with weapons hiding in every nook and cranny didn't sit well with his suspicious nature, but he kept reminding himself over and over that they were Selani, and they wouldn't attack him so long as he was in the company of other Selani. He had no doubt that they could see his brands, so that only lent credence to the illusion that he was supposed to be there.

  And still the cloud grew in the distance, and still his sense of that object sharpened more and more.

  They reached the edge of the cloud about a half hour before sunset. It was circular, a flat, featureless cloud much akin to fog, and there was no raggedness to its borders. It simply began, and it looked just as thick at the edges as it did towards its center. It was apparent that the cloud was indeed a huge thing, swallowing up the entire northern sky. And his senses told him that the magic was indeed a product of some kind of magic. He could sense it, even from
that distance. It felt a little strange stepping under it, almost as if he had entered someone's house.

  About five longspans inside the boundary of the cloud, they reached an area where buzzards, vultures, and jackals congregated in very large numbers. It was very odd, because there didn't seem to be anything that he could see that could support them. But being who they were, they wouldn't hang around the area unless there was something there to eat. Tarrin knelt as they entered the area when something caught his eyes, and he found a grotesquely misshapen steel head of a crossbow quarrel, affixed to a shattered bolt. The sight of the thing sent a shiver of pain through his chest, as the memory of the crossbow quarrel that nearly killed him tingled through his awareness. Selani didn't use crossbows...could this be from the Aeradalla? Maybe one of them had dropped the bolt while flying, and the fall destroyed it.

  There was a strange sound some distance to the right of them. Tarrin looked to see several vultures and jackals converge on the area, then immediately begin fighting among themselves for whatever it was.

  "Weird," Sarraya mused.

  "Very," Tarrin agreed. "Why are they here?"

  "We think that the Cloudracers hunt in the clouds above us," Var said. "Things fall from the cloud from time to time, and the scavengers have learned that some of it is edible."

  "That, or they dump their garbage here," Sarraya added, pointing to a fragment of pottery laying on the sandy ground.

  "Either way, it's no concern of ours," Tarrin surmised. "Let's move on."

  Near sunset, they crested a small rise, and found themselves looking into a very shallow yet absolutely vast valley. Tarrin pulled up at that crest and stared down in astonishment. The Cloud Spire hovered in the distance, the base of it and its pillar visible now, and from where he was he could see that it was nothing like any other spire. It was a monster, the king of all pillars, and it had to be an entire longspan wide at its base. And it didn't particularly narrow as it reached into the sky, reached into the vast cloud that hovered almost over their heads now. It was the tallest, highest thing he had ever seen in his life.

  And that was only half of the astonishment. Swarming around the land inside that shallow valley, protected by the sun from the shade of the immense cloud that hung overhead, were hundreds of thousands of Selani. They gathered together in small enclaves separated by huge flocks of the herd animals upon which the Selani depended. Their campfires were like stars spread out on the ground before them, and they extended to the Cloud Spire, and even beyond it, like an immense army besieging the solitary pinnacle of rock.

  "Gathering," Denai said in a kind of dreamy, excited manner.

  "There are so many," Tarrin said in disbelief.

  "What did you expect?" Sarraya asked him as she landed on his shoulder. "A cozy little group like your old village?"

  "It looks like only about half of the clans are in," Var said critically. "Odd for it being so late."

  "Maybe there are bad storms out there," Denai suggested. "We've been very lucky not to have any storms slow us down for a while now."

  "You getting a closer sense on that thing, Tarrin?" Sarraya asked. That made him pay attention to the other half of his senses, the ones that could sense magic. It was like a beacon to him, and the sense of its location was now exacting. Tarrin followed the feel of it with his eyes out over the shallow valley. They locked on the Cloud Spire...then they went up.

  Tarrin looked up into the cloud, and he felt not a little bit of trepidation and disappointment. The object was a good distance past that cloud. Obviously, it was in the possession of the Aeradalla. If he wanted to see what it was, he was going to have to climb that imposing monstrosity. The thought of it nearly made him afraid.

  "I take it that it's up there?" Sarraya asked.

  Tarrin nodded only once. "Right there," he said, pointing into the cloud.

  "What's up there?" Denai asked curiously.

  "Something that doesn't concern you," he said pointedly. "They've already seen me, so there's no use trying to hide," he reasoned. "But I'm not going down there and have them swarm all over me." He looked at Var and Denai, then moved off the ridge. He couldn't hide from the Scouts, but at least he'd have some time to hide himself by the time they got back to the Gathering with the information they were about to pick up.

  What he was about to do didn't sit well with him, but he didn't see much choice. He'd attract too much attention to himself as he was, and it would look very odd for two Selani to be moving at a pace so a cat could keep up with them. The idea riled up his feral nature, and he had to force himself even to think about it. He couldn't even say it. "Denai, you're the lucky one."

  "For what?"

  Before he could answer, his form blurred and compressed, and the giant Were-cat was replaced by a rather large black cat. He sat on his haunches patiently and looked up at her, his eyes steady and his cat expression sober, as the suddenly displaced Sarraya managed to recover herself, giving Tarrin a furious look. That expression and calm nature hid a violent whirlwind of conflicting emotions in him, as his fear of strangers--even Denai--battled with both his reasoning that there was no other way, and the fact that he liked the Selani girl. He knew she wouldn't hurt him, but that was little consolation as the Cat in him conjured up any number of reasons or images of the ways she could hurt him or betray him. It was by an extreme act of will that he sat there, that he allowed her to do what he knew she knew to do.

  "Oh. I can handle it," she said with a bright smile, reaching down and picking him up.

  It felt decidedly strange being held by someone that was not part of his little family, and it caused an irrational surge of fear in him. But Denai's hands were gentle and her hold on him reassuring, enveloping, surrounding him with a sense of peace. He settled down after a moment, and with that calming came a peculiar feeling of safety that could only be found while being held in the arms of a protector. Tarrin actually found himself able to relax in her comforting hold, and he settled in against her arm and closed his eyes as Denai carried him down the ridge, down towards the massive throng of the Selani Gathering.

  It was a small victory, but he'd take them any way he could. He had managed to allow a stranger to pick him up. Like Mist, he had allowed himself to come into a position where he did not have full control, and the idea of that was not as terrifying now as it seemed but a moment ago. There was fear--there was still fear--but he found that he could tolerate it.

  It was more than he would have allowed a month ago.

  The Selani were much different to him now.

  Var and Denai had reached the outside edge of the massive Gathering about a half hour after sunset, and the lights of the fires illumated the barren, sandy landscape. The Selani here were boisterous, but not reckless. There was loud music, drinking, dancing, talking, laughing, but no carousing or improper behavior that one would see in a group of drunk humans. Even in drinking, the Selani dignity and sense of honor overwhelmed the loosening effect of their drink, making the sounds coming from campfires one of celebration and togetherness rather than a drunken row. The Selani were family, even in such a huge gathering of them, and they acted like such.

  That didn't mean that there wasn't activity. Around some campfires, some watched as others battled one another in the Dance, or even with weapons. But after watching a moment, he saw that it was more of a friendly challenge, a competition, not a fight. The Holy Mother forbade the Selani from fighting each other, and that prohibition was strong enough even here to hold true. Around others, there was dancing. He never thought of the Selani as dancers--their word for dance was the name of their fighting art form--but they were well suited for it. Both males and females danced, either alone or with one another, and their steps were light and well measured. These were ritual forms, dances taught, not the random undulations that passed for dance in some societies. It was graceful and delicate, where even the motion of a finger seemed to carry meaning and importance. He didn't have time to watch a full dance, since
Denai was carrying him, but he saw enough to be impressed by both the Selani aptitude and the gentle beauty of the dances they performed.

  "Ask Denai where we're going," Tarrin told the nearby Sarraya in the manner of the Cat.

  "Tarrin wants to know where we're going," Sarraya relayed from her invisible position.

  "I'm following Var," she shrugged.

  "I'm looking for my mother's tribe," he announced. "They're very good friends with my tribe, and my grandmother will offer us hospitality until one of our tribes get here."

  Tarrin kept watching the Selani as he was carried along, and after several moments, he realized a fundamental difference between them and humans. Humans who didn't know one another didn't care. They were unfeeling, indifferent. It wasn't so with the Selani. They cared for one another, even complete strangers, greeting one another in a benevolent fashion, where complete strangers could sit down at the fire of a tribe and find welcome. Allia told him that there was occasional friction between tribes or clans, but from what he saw watching them, those frictions had to be nothing like frictions between human societies. The Holy Mother's forbiddance to fight with one another had settled into her people in a very good way, making them cordial and compassionate to one another. Even bitter enemies could sit side by side at one of those fires and find acceptance. And while the rival may not like the Selani, he would respect his honor and afford him proper treatment. They treated their children with love and gentleness, he saw, a child finding complete safety no matter where he or she went, since every Selani around the child would keep an eye out for the child's safety and well being, would give the child the attention he or she needed. Allia had told him that all Selani took a hand in raising the children, and watching them, he understood her meaning. A Selani child had a mother and father, but the child's tribe were aunts and uncles and cousins. To be raised in an environment of such love! Tarrin was lucky to have been raised in a similar environment, since the farm had been out and away from the village. He could identify with them.