The Immortal Walker

by McKellon Meyer

  “Your granddad.”

  She tripped over a rock. Not just an old man.

  “Hezere took Sveka to Grehesh after the Sorcerer.”

  Kaislyn didn’t like thinking about her mother’s past. The Sorcerer kept the Last Snake Tamer entrapped for years on his volcano. And for what? Because he wanted that horrible snake of hers?

  Not entirely.

  “So he’s not actually related,” Kaislyn said, wrenching her thoughts away from Sveka.

  “I suppose,” said Drazan. “Get the gate for me.”

  Kaislyn unlatched the gate for Drazan and the three horses. The goats crowding on the other side pushed their way past her.

  “I said get the gate, not let the goats out,” said Drazan with a smile.

  “You could have warned me!” Kaislyn tried to push a goat back to the gate. It ignored her efforts and walked the other way.

  “I suppose I should also have warned you not to leave the gate open,” added Drazan.

  Kaislyn spun around as more goats leapt past her into freedom. “You could have closed the gate yourself!”

  “My hands are full of reins,” Drazan replied. He led the horses into the yard, expertly hip checking several goats on the way and kicked the gate shut behind him. “The goats are your mess. You catch them while I brush the horses.” His voice floated to her through the slats in the fence.

  “Thank you ever so much,” Kaislyn said sarcastically.

  “Welcome to the mountains, sweetheart.”

  Kaislyn turned her attention to the goats. They milled casually around the fence line, nosing the grass. She counted five. When she move toward the nearest one, it jumped away from her and went to a different patch of grass. As Kaislyn followed it, she saw two others making their way toward the nearest houses. Kaislyn ran after those instead.

  Running was a mistake. The goats skipped nimbly away from her and several people stopped what they were doing to watch Kaislyn chase the goats through the village and out the other side. The goats ambled down a steeper side of the mountain, occasionally pausing to nibble a flower or blade of grass.

  This was impossible! Turning in a hopeless circle, Kaislyn saw an older man with a brown beard streaked silver and grey eyes emerging from a hut. He flinched as their gazes met. He held a worn, dull axe in one hand.

  “Your hair is quite long,” he offered, awkwardly.

  “It grows,” Kaislyn snapped. “Can I have some help?”

  The man turned eagerly away from her. “Yes. Certainly. Oiy! Goats loose!”

  Children came tumbling out of houses and around rocks and trees.

  “Help her get the goats back.” The man realized he was pointing his axe at Kaislyn. He dropped it as if it had burned him. “Anytime you want help.” He grabbed the axe from the ground and walked away from her, not quite running.

  “Thanks,” Kaislyn muttered. She watched the children lure and chase the goats back to their pen. They did it very enthusiastically with lots of screaming and “oiys!”

  Drazan grinned at her as the goats were hustled into their pen. “I see you’ve already made lots of friends.” Most of the disappearing children were calling her by her name already.

  “I have goat drool on my pants,” she said.

  “I’m fairly certain it’s not poisonous.”

  Dinner was a thick stew and a meat Kaislyn could neither identify nor chew. They sat beside a fire pit outside of Grehesh’s hut. The old man sat just out of reach of the light in a rocking chair that creaked almost as much as he did. No one talked much, but when someone did, it was about people Kaislyn didn’t know. She was soon doing head bobs despite her efforts not to.

  “There’s a bed curtained off for privacy inside,” Sveka said. “Go to sleep.”

  Kaislyn nodded. “Night,” she mumbled and retreated gratefully into the hut. She found the bed, a crude wooden frame a few inches above the ground with a thick straw pallet piled high with soft blankets. Kaislyn wriggled deep into the blankets and fell asleep to the murmur of her parents’ voices.

  When Kaislyn woke the next morning, she found Grehesh outside in his rocking chair. She wondered if he’d moved at all from last night. He had a blanket across his lap. The valley was still dark, the sky just beginning to turn from inky black to a gentle indigo. The moon hung in a silver arc in front of her so close, she could imagine reaching out and plucking it from the sky.

  “Good morning,” said Grehesh.

  “Morning,” Kaislyn said. “Where are my parents?”

  “They left in the night.”

  “Just like that? They didn’t even say goodbye!”

  “I was under the impression you weren’t fond of farewells,” said Grehesh. “Did you bid your parents goodbye before you ran off to be a thief?”

  Kaislyn flushed. “It’s not as bad as they made it seem.”

  “Why are you so defensive? I said nothing against your chosen profession.”

  “Didn’t you? It sure sounded like it.”

  “I think you can do better,” Grehesh said, unperturbed.

  “Right. Like tending goats and learning to make butter?”

  “Someone has to.” Grehesh continued to rock back and forth in his chair. “Your parents hope it’s not too late to make you honest.”

  “I’m as honest as they are.”

  “Hmm.”

  “You’re all wasting your time. I’ll just run off.” Not to the mountains. She was here already. To the Third City? It wasn’t a bad idea. Jaden would be happy to see her and she could make something up about escaping Falan. She rubbed her ears against the echoing rattle of keys that destroyed the peacefulness of the early morning.

  “I don’t like goats either,” Grehesh said. “It’s one of the advantages of being the shaman. I can choose not to raise goats. Of course, now I have you to raise.” His grey eyes watched her as peacefully as they did the valley.

  “I’m not a goat!”

  “Aren’t you? You’re stubborn and clever.”

  Despite the fact he was comparing her to a goat, Kaislyn did not get the impression he was mocking her. “Why am I really here?”

  Grehesh didn’t answer, returning his gaze to the valley. His rocking slowed to a thoughtful sway.

  “Well?”

  “Impatient little thing, aren’t you? You should learn to be more like the mountains.”

  “Big and slow?” said Kaislyn.

  Grehesh smiled. “And fat. Is that how you view the mountains? Have you never heard the legends of how the mountains were formed?”

  “The gods got into a fight. Then there were mountains.”

  “Clearly, you are not a storyteller. You would never know it to look at them that they were formed from such violence, would you?”

  Kaislyn shrugged.

  “That is what you must become,” Grehesh said, his gaze soft as it traveled over the towering peaks surrounding them.

  “A mountain,” Kaislyn stated. Her parents hadn’t just abandoned her with an old man, they’d abandoned her with a crazy old man.

  “Some of those mountains contain fires within.”

  “Volcanoes.”

  “Yes. They are serene and passive on the outside. Safe. But on the inside rages a tempest of fire and death waiting for release.” Grehesh looked at Kaislyn. “That is what you are now. An uncontrolled, spewing volcano. You must learn to control it. Keep your wrath and power hidden until it is needed.”

  “You mean I need to act all dignified and mature?”

  “Tell me, how many adults do you know who act in such a reserved manner?”

  Kaislyn choked on a snort. Perhaps she could get along with Grehesh after all.

  “Your parents brought you to me because they think you need discipline and a grounding in reality. Indeed, they want you to learn how to milk goats. They want to you to learn the simpler things in life and find contentment in them.”

  Kaislyn laughed outright. “And have they picked out a nice mountain boy for me to
marry?”

  “If they had, it would be a better pick than the thief you were running with. But,” Grehesh continued, forestalling her furious retort, “I raised Svetlana, and now she has brought to me her only child.” His eyes sharpened. “You should not exist, do you know that? If your mother is the Last Snake Tamer, what does that make you?”

  “Her daughter,” Kaislyn said.

  “It makes you an impossibility. So, you will learn how to care for the goats. You will learn to make bread. You will learn how to weave rugs.”

  “I just said—”

  “You will learn not to interrupt your elders,” Grehesh cut her off. He stopped rocking and rose to his feet. He took her by the arm and led her to the edge of the rocky outcropping that gave them an unspoiled view of the valley. “This is your birth home, Kaislyn. The mountains are as much yours as they are mine, though you did not quite... grow up here. Your parents think you are here to learn responsibility. You think you are here as a punishment. Neither is true.”

  Grehesh turned her, directing her attention behind the village. He pointed toward the east, the sunrise hidden by towering mountains. “Taking away the petty kingdoms of thieves and rearranging them to suit yourself is beneath you. You were born to dethrone kings.”

  Kaislyn stilled.

  “You’re the daughter of the Last Snake Tamer. The Immortal House is yours to inherit, its gifts yours to claim for yourself.”

  Kaislyn’s heart pounded in her ears, her blood rushed hot through her. “You know?” she said.

  Grehesh lifted her chin to meet her gaze. “The Sorcerer Ikaros has run unfettered long enough, don’t you think?”

  4 | Death by Falling

  Kaislyn’s heart stopped beating. Grehesh faded from her awareness. The mountains rose all around her, hemming her in before beginning to spin as waves of dizziness enveloped her.

  “Run, you fool old man. Run.” The furious voice reminded her of Sveka, hard and unforgiving. She wasn’t sure anymore if the mountains were spinning or she was. Rocks crashed around her. Someone was yelling at her. Cursing her.

  Sulfur filled the air.

  It wasn’t until her heart started beating again that the Shift attack ended. Kaislyn sneezed. Eyes scrunched shut, the sneezes ripped through her. They slowed, stopped.

  Kaislyn let out a long sigh of relief and collapsed into Grehesh’s rocking chair. That was a mistake. It could move. She slithered to the ground and didn’t move.

  Grehesh’s head appeared in her line of vision. His face creased into more lines with worry. “Kaislyn? Can you hear me now?”

  “My hearing is just fine, thank you.”

  “Not for the last few minutes it wasn’t,” Grehesh replied. “You were completely unresponsive.”

  Had she been? That was... new.

  “Kaislyn?”

  “I’m fine. Sometimes I... I experience things out of order.” Gifts of the Immortal House? Oh, yes. Gifts of insanity.

  “Does this happen often?” Grehesh asked.

  “More and more often, yes.” She didn’t dwell on her Shift attack. Of more interest to her was what Grehesh had said. He knew. Or at least knew some of it. She should have guessed that much since he’d raised her mother.

  “I’m hungry,” Kaislyn announced. She briskly brushed dirt off her clothes. “Isn’t it time for breakfast?”

  The shaman said nothing as Kaislyn busied herself with making breakfast for the two of them. It wasn’t until she was seated, bowl of oatmeal in her lap that he spoke again.

  “What happened?”

  Kaislyn lifted her wooden spoon and watched the oatmeal ooze off it into the bowl again. Making oatmeal was a lot harder than she’d thought.

  “One of those... gifts you referenced earlier,” she said, still watching her oozing oatmeal. “It was, er, a symptom of something coming.”

  “A premonition.”

  “Or already come,” Kaislyn amended. Nothing in her life could be simplified into an explanation of “It’s a premonition.” She set her oatmeal aside. Grehesh hadn’t touched his. Gloomily, she added, “Quite a lot of them have been stacking up lately.”

  “How long have you been quarrelling with the Sorcerer?”

  “A long time. Since I was eight.”

  She saw Grehesh trying to suppress a smile. “Eight years would seem like a long time when fighting with such a person.”

  Kaislyn’s lips twisted into a bitter smile, but she did not bother to correct Grehesh.

  “I like being at the edge of the village,” Grehesh said after a brief silence. “It allows me to keep guard over everyone.”

  “Guard against what?” Kaislyn was surprised, but grateful, Grehesh was letting the subject drop.

  “It’s mostly symbolic,” he admitted. “It’s customary for the shaman to live at the edge. It represents that he is willing to be the first to die in protection of his village should someone attack.”

  Someone. Not something. She didn’t give Grehesh enough credit for being clever. “Is... he much of a problem here?”

  “Not since you were eight,” Grehesh said so blandly that Kaislyn choked. He rose to his feet with a creak of joints. “You can start your share of chores tomorrow. For today, go and do what you like.”

  He used her shoulder for support while he bent over her and planted a kiss on her forehead. “I am delighted you are here.”

  Kaislyn smiled despite herself. “Me too—what is that?”

  “This?” Grehesh straightened. Rolling between two fingers was a tiny, unpolished rock. “Apparently, Svetlana didn’t find all of your stolen diamonds.”

  “Give it back,” Kaislyn ordered. It was the only one she’d snuck past Sveka’s watchful eyes.

  “You didn’t earn it.”

  “I stole it. That’s earning, right there. I worked hard to sneak it past the guards.”

  “And your mother.”

  “Yes.”

  “And yet I was able to steal it from you.” He took a step closer to the cliff edge and threw the diamond. It clattered much more loudly than Kaislyn thought it would for such a small rock.

  “What did you do that for? That was mine!” Her last connection to Jaden.

  “Then go get it.”

  “It’s a cliff! And there are hundreds of rocks at the bottom. I’d never find it.”

  “Then I guess you didn’t care all that much for it.”

  Kaislyn opened and shut her mouth. “You fight dirty.”

  “Shamans always do. It’s how we survive. Now go run off somewhere and leave me in peace. I’ll have to beg Nadia for a decent breakfast. I’m not sure how you both burned and undercooked something as simple as oatmeal.”

  Kaislyn issued a mocking bow. “It’s one of my many talents.”

  The stars had disappeared in the morning light by the time Kaislyn left the village. She used one of the main goat paths, following it easily up the mountainside. The stillness of the mountains wrapped around her and there were very few sounds beyond that of her own treading steps. The cold, thin air was a welcome relief to the thick, salty air of the Third City. She picked her way along steepening inclines as nimbly as a goat. It rained midmorning, leaving Kaislyn soaked.

  She arrived in early afternoon at a precipice and halted. She never felt more alive than she did standing on the heights of a mountain, alone and free from any worry or problem. Kaislyn surveyed the view, spying Grehesh’s village far below and several slopes over. The valley river was a deep ribbon of blue, reflecting against the clear sky.

  Humming to herself, Kaislyn began climbing down. She chose a different route from her ascent. She intended to enter the valley, cross the river, and come up to the village from the other side. She estimated she had just enough time before it grew dark.

  About halfway down, she found another rocky outcropping from which to admire the view and massage sore feet. She should have stolen boots instead of diamonds.

  A rustle in the bushes behind her made her turn. From
the sound she guessed a goat. She’d avoided any of the usual shepherd paths, but there were always strays wandering about.

  Kaislyn stiffened. It was not a goat.

  He didn’t look at her, busy brushing a few stray leaves from an otherwise pristine, black robe. It was belted around his narrow waist in gold, matching the large earrings that made his lobes sag. Finished with the leaves, he shook a pebble loose from his sandals. His hair was thick and black, the ghost of a beard beginning along his jawline.

  Kaislyn’s hand closed over the knife at her waist before she forced herself away from it. Wait. Be patient. Her body shook with the effort.

  Finished at last, he turned his attention to her, eyes as blue as the sky above them.

  “A little overdressed aren’t we?” Kaislyn stepped to the side as Ikaros joined her on the ledge.

  “And you’re disappointingly underdressed,” said Ikaros. “Is that goat I smell on you?”

  “Maybe. It’s better than what you smell like right now. Is that supposed to be perfume?”

  “Certainly. I have just come from the Royal City.” He watched her, posture as alert as hers must seem to him. Kaislyn always wondered why people were so afraid to meet Ikaros’ gaze. As if insanity was contagious!

  “How unfortunate that out of all these mountains, we both chose to climb the same one.” The effort of appearing civil was beginning to wear on Kaislyn, but she was determined to play the game. They both were. Each testing the other, waiting to see who would crack first.

  “I had to welcome you. I always know when the Immortal Walker has returned.” Ikaros’ burnt fingertips twitched.

  Kaislyn would have thought the threat empty, except, well, here he was. She couldn’t decide if the rest was an insult or not. She flashed him a bright smile. “How thoughtful of you, and me without a thorn bush!”

  His face flushed a dark red and he took a step closer to her. Kaislyn tensed, but Ikaros regained control and forced a shrug.

  It’d been an especially nasty fall into those brambles last time. She was certain Ikaros had broken his back. Pity the rocks from the Black Sand explosion had mostly missed him.