by Barb Hendee
With his free hand, Osha pushed the cloak over his shoulders to let it hang down his back. There was no more reason to delay, and he stepped through the open portal into the tunnel, working his way down the uneven passage until it narrowed suddenly at the top of a carved stone stairway.
A red-orange glow from below dimly illuminated the stairwell’s close walls. There was a small bracket in the wall, and Osha placed the torch inside it. Light from below increased slightly, as did the heat in the air, as he descended. He continued on, down and down, losing track of the passing time.
When it seemed the descent might never end, he stepped down onto a landing and looked through a rough, door-sized opening in the rock to his right. Out there, the orange-red light brightened, making the opening look like the mouth of a hearth in a dark room.
Osha stepped through and halted at the sight he had seen only once before.
A wide plateau ran in a gradual slant away from the entrance now behind him. At its distant edge, red light erupted out of a massive fissure in the mountain’s belly, like a gash wider than a river hidden somewhere below from where that light came. Smoke drifted up in glowing red air from deep in the earth.
The heat was almost unbearable.
In slow, heavy steps, he struggled forward until he was halfway to the plateau’s edge. There he stopped and reached inside his vestment to draw out the small, dark stone that he could not read. He knew what to do, though he could not bring himself to do it.
What would come of this?
Even for the loss of his jeóin, his mentor, the great Sgäilsheilleache, he still believed in his calling among the Anmaglâhk. It was all he had left. So why had the Chein’âs summoned him—among all anmaglâhk—a second time?
Since the stone would alert those who would come, what if he simply left without casting it over the precipice? He had a life of service awaiting him. With the rift among his caste and his doubts about Most Aged Father, should he turn back to do whatever he could to help?
Brot’ân’duivé had forced him into so many breaches of his caste’s and his people’s ways. His teacher, Sgäilsheilleache, would not have approved but neither would he have denied such a summons.
Now sweating in the heat, Osha drew a shallow breath as he swung his arm back. He cast the stone and watched as it arced out and over the precipice’s edge to fall from sight. Then he froze in waiting, though it did not take as long as he expected.
A soft scraping, like metal on stone, reached his ears before he saw anything.
The plateau’s edge looked almost black against the red-orange glare of the chasm below . . . and a part of that dark jagged line appeared to bulge suddenly.
From where Osha stood, at first the bulge seemed no more than a rippling smudge backlit by burning light. Small and blacker than the stone, it crawled over onto the plateau from out of the depths.
Osha made out its legs and arms as it crept forward on all fours . . . no, on threes, as it dragged something behind itself. That object, or bundle, crackled softly like cloth pulled over rough stone, though he also heard something like clicks and scrapes of metal. The closer the figure came, the more Osha was certain that the bundle was made of some strange fuzzy material as dark as the figure itself . . . and thin curls of smoke or vapor rose from the material.
When the figure was no more than a stone’s throw away, the chasm’s glare cleared from Osha’s sight, and he saw it, a Chein’âs . . . a Burning One. It was as small as a naked child of six or seven years; Osha could not tell whether it was male or female, and it was covered in leathery ebony-toned skin. It finally halted its crawl and squatted on spindly legs folded up with knobby knees against its chest. Only one hand was visible—the other was still behind its back and clutching whatever long bundle it dragged. Thin digits on that one visible hand curled near its flat cheek, and each ended in a shimmering claw blacker than its flesh.
The little one’s oversized head was featureless except for a tightly shut slit of a mouth, vertical cuts for small nostrils, and glowing fire-coal eyes. Where there should have been ears were only two small depressions on the sides of its bald skull.
Osha was not shocked. He had seen one of them before, though the sight of one now unsettled him, and then . . .
More scraping on stone carried across the plateau. The one sat unmoving, watching him with unblinking eyes like glowing metal overheated in a forge. The new scraping sound came from off beyond it.
A second—then a third—small figure crawled up over the precipice’s edge.
The last time Osha had come here, only one had appeared to deliver his weapons and tools. He retreated a step as he watched the other two approach, and then the first one scuttled even closer and jerked its bundle out into plain sight.
That burden was long and narrow, made of some dark, fibrous cloth, and thin trails of smoke rose from it.
The two new ones rounded to either side. Each bore a similar but much smaller bundle, small enough to clutch in one clawed hand. Both of those wads of dark cloth smoldered as well.
Without warning, the first one snatched the cloth of its bundle and jerked upward.
A long, shimmering object tumbled out, clanked, and clattered across the stone before sliding to a stop at Osha’s feet. All he could do was stare as his mind went blank.
It was a sword, though not like any he had heard described or seen carried by the few humans he had ever met. He did see that the handle was bare and no more than a narrow strut of metal, and that metal . . .
All of the blade and strut was silvery white, like his stilettos and tools, like Chein’âs metal.
The blade was as broad as three of his fingers. Nearly straight, its last third swept back a little in a shallow arc. The back of that third looked sharpened like the leading edge. Where the top third joined the lower part, a slightly curved barb swept forward from the blade’s back toward its tip.
The end strut, perhaps needing leather and wood for a hilt, was twice as long as the width of his hand. It curved just a little downward, as much as the slight upward turn at the blade’s end. Two more protrusions extended where the hilt strut met the blade’s base. The top one curved forward, while the bottom one swept slightly back toward the hilt strut.
Osha did not know how long he stared. Anmaglâhk did not wield such large, clumsy, human weapons. They struck swiftly in silence from the shadows by arrow, narrow blade, or garrote, though he himself had never killed anyone.
Unlike many of his people, Osha had no aversion to the sight of that sword. He had spent too much time with humans—with Magiere and Léshil—to be repelled by the mere sight of a foreign weapon. Still, what did it mean?
The Chein’âs had gifted strange weapons, ones made of silver-white metal, to Magiere and Léshil. It was unheard of for any but the Anmaglâhk to receive such gifts. Was this blade to be delivered to one of them? It did not look much like Magiere’s falchion.
Why would the Burning Ones summon him to carry such a thing away?
Looking up, he shook his head in confusion. “What am I to do? Who is this for?”
That must be the answer. He was so unimportant among his caste that using him as a bearer would cost the caste nothing. But to whom should he deliver this sword?
To his puzzlement, none of the three before him made a sound or gesture.
The one to the right of the first opened its smoking piece of cloth. It flung a cluster of tiny silver-white objects that pinged and skipped across the stone floor at him. Before he even looked to where any of those stopped, the third Chein’âs—to the left of the first—flung a single, slightly larger object, though it was not nearly so large as the sword blade.
That last object clattered and rolled in among the other five small ones.
Osha could not help retreating another step.
The five smaller objects were arrowheads, but not the t
eardrop points used by the Anmaglâhk or even the military archers who most often served aboard the people’s largest vessels. These points were long and diamond-shaped, with harsh angles and thick at the centers.
Osha remembered one of his earliest teachers while he was a mere acolyte. The teacher had shown him and others one such point made of steel, brought back from human lands.
Those were armor-piercing points . . . arrowheads for war.
Osha tried to swallow under a rising panic, but his mouth had dried out.
The final object was again made of shining white metal: a piece shaped like half or maybe more of the circumference of a round tube . . . but its length was slightly curved toward the solid side.
He had no idea what it was at first. It looked a little like the white metal handle for an Anmaglâhk short bow, once the bow’s arms were removed to be tucked away in hiding. But this object was longer, open on one side, and slightly curved along its length. Bow arms would never stay in place once inserted into it.
Unlike the sword, everything else before Osha was similar to the tools of the Anmaglâhk, but different in ways that made the pieces unsuited to guardians of the people. The true weapons of an anmaglâhk would not be lying beside a sword, so whom were these objects for?
He raised his eyes to the first Chein’âs as he pointed at the sword. “Where do I take this? Who is this for?”
None of them answered, and he began to wonder whether they even understood his words.
The first one rushed at him.
Osha back-stepped twice, but that one halted at the sword. It scooped the metal with its claws and flipped the blade outward. The sword clattered to Osha’s feet again, and the Chein’âs pointed at the blade . . . and then at him.
Fear and revulsion rose in Osha. He could not believe what he guessed.
The first Chein’âs let out a hiss like water striking hot stone. It pointed at Osha’s left arm and then at his right.
“What do you want?” he rasped, fighting to breathe the heated air.
It curled its clawed fingers above its opposing arm, as if drawing something down and off that forearm. It whipped that hand outward, as if casting that something aside.
Osha touched his right hand to his left forearm. All he felt there was a sheathed stiletto beneath his sleeve. The agitated Chein’âs mimed the same movement again, and Osha shifted one foot back and set himself.
“No. I am Anmaglâhk! I have my gifts—from your people—to prove this!”
At his angry shout, all three rushed him.
Osha faltered, unable to strike at them . . . unable to commit another sacrilege. One of them latched its hand—its claws—around his left forearm, and he screamed.
Smoke rose from his sleeve beneath that searing grip.
Osha struck back as the other two leaped at him. His fist hit the first one, and a jar shot up his arm as if he had struck stone. He heard his flesh sear an instant before he felt it.
Their clawed hands burned him through his clothing as he fought to throw them off. It was like fighting children made of black metal, and everywhere they tore at his clothing, smoke rose with more burning pain . . . until they pinned him down.
Out of his frayed and charred sleeves, they tore off his stilettos, sheathes and all. The pain left him half-blind, half-conscious, and in spasms. He felt them digging for his bone knife and garrote. And then they were gone from atop him, and he tried to roll on his side as he clutched at the plateau’s rough stone.
He could barely see while clinging to consciousness. All that he spotted was one of their shadowlike forms far off, as if it now stood at the precipice’s edge. That one began tossing things over the edge, and Osha screamed from deep loss more than pain.
His body felt as if he had been burned all over, and he lost sight of everything as the world turned black.
Sometime later he opened his eyes slowly. He did not know how long he had simply lain there in the heat. When he raised his head, he still lay on his side, and one of them remained.
The Chein’âs again squatted off beyond reach and pointed at the sword.
Still shuddering, Osha tried to push himself up.
The Chein’âs let out a screech that echoed across the plateau like metal upon stone.
It rushed to the five arrowheads and the other white metal object, snatched them up, and threw them; they fell right beside the blade. The small creature bolted away along the plateau and leaped over the edge.
Osha’s sight blurred with tears.
It was not enough that he had been cast out, no longer Anmaglâhk. The Burning Ones had forced upon him something so vile, so human, in the eyes of his people that he would be shunned . . . cast out, should they ever learn of it.
He collapsed on his back. If he lay there long enough in the heat, perhaps he would simply die—and that would be better. He closed his eyes, slipping away in the dark, waiting for the pain to end.
Get up.
Osha twitched in unconsciousness. At first he did not know whether he had truly awoken again . . . until burning pain on his skin and a breath of searing air confirmed it.
Get up . . . now!
He stiffened at that voice and opened his eyes, but all he saw above him was darkness broken only by the chasm’s flickering light as it wavered upon the slanted rough stone of the wall behind him. Even that was too hazy in his half-conscious suffering.
We serve . . . even with our deaths. So why waste yourself this way?
Who was there? Who was speaking to him?
Searching for that voice, Osha rolled his head toward the far precipice. The plateau was little more than a blurred black plane that ended in red sky, like sometimes seen before a dawn . . . or at dusk.
Look at me . . . and listen!
Osha struggled to twist the other way, and it hurt him all over. He barely made out the opening he had come through to reach the plateau. Everything around that black pit in the stone was blurred with dim red light. But something—someone—stood in the darker shadows beyond the opening.
What we are is not found in what we are given. What we are called is not why we serve.
Osha could not make out who was there. What little light breached the opening exposed a form of sharper shape than the blurred stone of the chasm wall.
We serve without question . . . or acknowledgment . . . or reward. We serve in whatever way comes to us.
Osha struggled to his hands and knees. That voice was too painfully familiar, though he should not—could not—have truly heard it after so long.
What he could make out through the opening appeared to be a man. There was a hint of a cowl or hood, almost colorless, and perhaps a cloak with its corners tied up across the waist over a tunic. All of that attire was the same colorless tone down to leggings and high felt boots . . . perhaps of forest gray.
Do not forget what little I was able to teach you. Honor me in that . . . not in memory or mourning . . . or a worthless death.
Osha pushed up, somehow climbing to his feet amid the pain, and squinted at the shadowed figure.
“Jeóin . . . Teacher?” he tried to say, though it came out a hoarse whisper.
The figure did not move or speak again. Perhaps the too-dark pit of its cowl shifted, as if looking beyond him.
Osha teetered as he turned enough to peer at what still lay upon the stone. Even the sword, the arrowheads, and the split tube were blurred in his sight, and when he looked back . . .
No one was there beyond the opening.
Osha rushed over, stumbling, and looked up the steps leading back to the white metal portal.
“Sgäilsheilleache!” His scream tore his throat, though it did not stop him. “Please . . . Sgäilsheilleache . . . come back.”
The only answer he received was the echo of his own torment, and he crumpled upon the first step
. When he had no tears left, he crawled back out upon the plateau. On his knees, he stared at what had been given to him in place of what had been taken from him.
He had to accept it all. He might no longer be Anmaglâhk, but he could not disrespect the covenants. He could not shame his lost teacher.
Spreading out his tattered and charred cloak, he fumbled to place all of the objects upon it . . . even that hiltless sword. He could not tie it all together and was forced to gather it all in his arms. That only made his flesh sting as he crawled up the stone steps out of the searing depths. . . .
• • •
Wynn sat on the bunk. She ached inside as she watched Osha, who only stared at the dead wick of the candle that no longer sent a trace of smoke into the cabin’s air.
“I have told no one but you,” he whispered, expressionless.
Wynn began to shudder, and the room became a watery blur before her eyes. But she would not cry, not let one tear fall. Nothing she felt could match what he had been through.
Most Aged Father, Brot’an, and then the Chein’âs . . .
What had they done to the Osha she had once known?
She slipped off the bunk’s edge and knelt on the floor before him, though the dead candle was in her way, and she didn’t know whether she should—could—move it to reach him. Only then did Osha blink once and look up at her.
“I can’t imagine what . . .” she started, and looked at his hands, cupped one in the other in his lap; the sheen of burn scars was visible below the sleeve cuffs. “I can’t imagine,” she repeated.
“No, you cannot.”
“What . . . what then?”
“I made my way to the shore. . . . I am uncertain how. . . .”
• • •
Osha remembered waking to the sound of waves crashing and the sight of the ship’s master standing over him, her wide eyes filled with fright and worry.
“Be careful,” she said, looking aside at someone else. “He has been burned.”
Osha almost cried out as two of the ship’s crew gripped and lifted him. As they stepped into the water to place him in a skiff, he must have fallen unconscious again. When he next awoke, he lay on his stomach upon a bunk aboard the ship. For all that he could tell, he was naked, covered only by a thin blanket. But he could feel cold, soaked cloths wrapped around his forearms and draped across his back. Nearby on the floor lay the wrapped bundle of what had once been his cloak and what was held within it.
