“Have you a name?” he asked it. “Or is firekin your name?”
A little puff of white smoke drifted from the top of its head as it bobbed it up and down.
“Might I know it then?”
The creature hopped back off its twig pile and zipped along the grass to form another message before returning.
CRKSSLFF.
“I… I don’t think I can pronounce that,” Devin said, laughing. “Might I give you a name more suitable for my tongue?”
The little firekin shrugged its shoulders, the human gesture enough to melt Devin’s heart. He watched it as he thought for a proper name. The firekin softly swayed atop its kindling, puff after puff of smoke happily rising from its body. An idea for a name came to him, and its silliness felt like a perfect counter to the grave dourness of the previous day.
“Puff,” Devin said. “No… Puffy. Is Puffy suitable for you as a name?”
It nodded.
“Excellent,” he said. “I know not where you came from, little firekin, but consider yourself welcome in my camp.”
Devin couldn’t be sure, but to his eyes the creature burned just a little bit brighter in response. He rested his head in his palm and watched it consume the twigs. The remainder of the logs shimmered as the firekin brushed off their ash and set them back alight. His campfire spread its heat, banishing the lick of cold that had settled upon Devin’s skin. The little thing didn’t seem to mind his watching, and Devin could only guess as to how much time passed before he finally could not keep his eyes open.
“I need to sleep,” Devin said to the firekin. “Tomorrow will be another long day. There are strange creatures about, ones that aren’t so friendly as you, and I must be strong enough to face them.”
Puffy cocked its head to one side quizzically. It moved its arms in a circle.
“I don’t understand,” Devin said.
In response the firekin zipped out and ran a circle surrounding Devin’s bedroll before returning to the campfire. It crossed its little arms, which melded into one another.
“You’ll keep me safe?” he asked. Puffy nodded. Devin blinked away a few tears. “Thank you, little one. Thank you so much.”
Devin lay down on his bedroll and turned so his head faced the flame. The firekin bobbed up and down while its little black eyes scanned the night. He smiled at it, wishing they could better communicate. Their bizarre midnight meeting was the first time he hadn’t felt alone since the black water’s rise. He watched it keeping guard until the weight of his eyelids was too heavy a burden.
Puffy was gone come morning. Nothing but ash remained of his campfire. Had it died or merely run off seeking more sustenance? Devin shook his head and refused to accept the former. The firekin lived. He would believe no other alternative.
“Blessed be the morn, and the Sister who gave it,” Devin prayed as he prepared his breakfast. “And whoever sent me a little friend, thanks for that, too.”
CHAPTER 7
Devin used the quiet solitude of his trek to ponder what exactly to make of his nocturnal visitor. Church doctrine rattled around in his skull, but nothing seemed applicable. The Sisters arrived upon the Cradle to find it floating barren amid the chaotic void. They blanketed the cold stone with grass and forests. They made the moon and sun and put them into an endless dance in honor of the eternal cycle they would soon create. They birthed the wolf and the deer, the raccoon and the grasshopper, spreading life throughout the Cradle. Then the Sisters reached through the void and took the light of the First Soul from the forever lands beyond. Within was the concepts of love, forgiveness, compassion, and selflessness. The Sisters gifted this soul to the humans, their most favorite of creations.
All of this was clearly detailed in the First Canon. What was not mentioned was any sort of living fire creatures, or giants made of stone. Had they existed before the Sisters arrived? It was an interesting thought, but that contradicted the idea of the Cradle originally being barren.
Devin held his breath and closed his eyes as he trudged through a thick patch of black grass that had grown across a smooth stretch of the road. Perhaps he was looking at it the wrong way. What if they weren’t creations of the Goddesses, but instead their enemies? When the Three Sisters carried the First Soul back to the Cradle, the furious void took the form of a great dragon and tried to swallow its light. For a thousand years they battled until the void-dragon was defeated and fled far, far away to lick its wounds. The Sisters delivered the First Soul to the Sacred Mother, whose name had been lost to time, but her gift, the divine right of all her children to bear a soul upon birth, had elevated humanity to masters of the Cradle.
The blood of the void-dragon had fallen upon the Cradle during their battle, however, and it tainted the purity of the Goddesses’ creation. While humans learned love and compassion, they also gained the capacity for hatred and cruelty. Devin wondered if perhaps these new creatures had been given form by the blood of the void-dragon, hence their strange and otherworldly forms. This meant Arothk and Puffy were physical manifestations of the void’s insatiable hunger and hatred of light and heat, and therefore enemies of the Keeping Church.
“That’s ridiculous,” Devin said aloud, and he shook his head. The idea that something as playful as Puffy or as noble as Arothk could be tied to the void just didn’t hold water. He refused to believe them enemies of the church. That answer was too easy, too cowardly, to be true. This left one final, and frightening, thought: Even the oldest and wisest of the church’s teachings lacked all knowledge of these beings.
Goddesses above, what he’d give to have Adria there with him. His sister was far better versed in church doctrine and its long, convoluted history. Thinking of Adria punched his gut with worry. Was she fine, or did she suffer as he did through a bleak, corrupted world? Or worse, did she survive at all? Horrible thoughts to endure, but alone and lost in the wild, he had little else to occupy his mind.
Devin crested a small hill, and the sight below him stole away his dark thoughts. Below him, perfectly split in half by the winding road, was a giant clearing of healthy green grass sprinkled with melting trampled snow. Devin ran to its center, his pack sliding loose from his shoulder and onto the ground. He tore his mask from his face. Everywhere he looked he saw signs of life. Footprints in the snow. Blackened circles of campfires. Holes in the dirt where tired men and women nailed down their tents.
“The people of Dunwerth,” Devin said, needing a human voice to pierce the quiet. “They live.”
The story spread before him, as easy to read as a book. The gathered villagers of Dunwerth had camped in this little valley prior to traveling the Winding Steppes. The black water had come for them, corrupting all it touched… but then at the last moment it split, avoiding them like a river blocked by a tremendous stone. The people were spared. Why, he did not know.
Devin dropped to his knees and ran his hands through the grass. His eyes drank in the color. His fingers floated across the blades. He tore a chunk of earth free and breathed in the missing world. Devin lost himself to a fit of laughter, his hands crushing the grass and scattering dirt. He’d needed this, so badly he’d needed this, never knowing until the green spread before him amid a world of pale snow, black grass, and gray stone.
The Soulkeeper dropped onto his back and stared at the blue sky. For a brief moment he let himself believe that all was well, and that when he sat back up, the beautiful mountains of Alma’s Crown would no longer bear the scars of the black water. The notion passed, as it must, but the joy fueled him in a way no food ever could.
“Did you save these people?” Devin wondered to the clouds. “Was it Lyra’s hand that guided the waters aside? Or did you impose your will, Anwyn, for it was not yet their time?”
It didn’t matter, not really. What mattered was that the villagers lived. Pulling himself up from the grass, he hoisted his pack over his shoulder and retied his mask across his face. If he hurried he might catch up to them before they reached the tow
n of Crynn. Devin left the blessed circle of life and ventured onward to the worn path known as the Winding Steppes.
Dunwerth was surrounded by a beautiful series of valleys and hills nestled between the taller peaks of Alma’s Crown. Leaving that relatively open section meant traveling a path through those peaks, of which there was only a single road, the Winding Steppes. It started off fairly flat and wide, like the dried basin of an enormous river, but as the day wore on the path narrowed, and to one side a canyon steadily grew steeper and steeper. The black grass vanished, a welcome relief, but it came with biting cold winds swirling down from the snow-capped peaks.
After several more hours Devin’s road was little more than a slab of stone carved into the side of a mountain. To his right, always present in his weary mind, was a massive cliff. Devin had found it a little unnerving on his travel to Dunwerth. On his way out, after encountering the dangers the black water had seemingly awakened, the road was an anxiety-inducing torment.
The water might not have made it this far, he told himself as he pulled his coat tighter at the neck. The barren ground provided no evidence one way or the other toward its passage, so Devin allowed himself to hope. Every hour or so he encountered another sign of the villagers, usually in the form of a stiff corpse pushed against the steep cliff side. They were typically elderly, Devin noticed, lost to the cold and exhaustion of travel. A deep instinct demanded that he stay and escort the soul during the reaping hour. Each time he reminded himself of the blazing souls soaring heavenward the prior night. Perhaps this new world had no need for Soulkeepers and their rituals.
It wasn’t until nightfall that he spotted a corpse bearing signs not of weather but of injury. Devin knelt beside the body and frowned. His gloved hand pulled away the young woman’s stiff hair to reveal long red gashes across her neck and shoulder. A cloth was tied about her throat. It crinkled as he pulled it away, and he quickly let it go. Frozen blood had hardened the cloth. The woman’s throat was torn open, with a bit of her exposed trachea hanging free.
No blade did this, he thought as he stood. His hand drifted to the hilt of his sword. So what then?
Devin debated his course of action. Whatever had killed this woman could still lurk nearby, assuming the villagers had not brought it down during the attack. Camping here was dangerous. On the other hand, the path was narrow, the moonlight often blocked by clouds, and his every muscle ached from exhaustion. Continuing on could easily result in him stumbling off the path to die at the bottom of the ravine.
Deciding he’d trust his sword and pistol over his tired eyes, Devin resigned to catching up with the survivors the following day. With so little wood in his pack, he grimaced away his discomfort and tore the clothes free of the dead woman’s corpse to use as additional kindling. He used his own body to block the wind, and after a little bit of oil and a heavy striking of the flint, he set his campfire to blaze. Its meager heat was a welcome relief upon his numb face.
Once his limbs had thawed he debated what to do with the corpse. He had not the supplies nor the time to build a proper pyre. The best he could do was craft a burial mask with the snow, so he prayed that would be sufficient. He piled it high across her face and, after a moment’s hesitation, piled more across the wounded neck and shoulder. No need to keep that grotesque sight visible. The reaping hour approached, its arrival more obvious to Devin’s mind than any wind or sparkle of sunlight. It wasn’t quite the same power as in the mayor’s house, but it was close. Devin spoke the holy words, though he couldn’t shake the feeling that they were no longer necessary in this new world.
“Blessed Sisters, take her home,” he finished. The symbol of the three Goddesses flared blue in the snow, and then the soul parted from the body like a shot. It blazed into the heavens, a comet in reverse. Devin let out a soft sigh. At least he hadn’t found a way to screw that up. That left one minor, wriggling detail. He had no pyre, yet the corpse was an empty shell needing to be burned or buried. Seeing no good solution, he gave up and shoved the naked body off the cliff to the ravine below.
“Sisters help me, I cannot wait to be among civilization again,” he muttered. “I swear I’ve committed more blasphemies in the past two days than all the rest of my life.”
Should he die before the dawn he’d plead his case to the Sisters for clemency. If he lived, well, then he’d have had a good night’s sleep. Devin curled up as close to the fire as he dared, and he idly watched the flickering flames while wondering if his little firekin would make another appearance. He certainly hoped it would.
A long howl pierced his hazy mind, pulling him from sleep he was surprised to have entered. His eyes snapped open, a chill spiking from his heart to his throat. Wolves, this far up the mountains? That wasn’t right. Could they have been chased here by the black water? Or had they been changed into an unholy abomination like the corpses and the grass?
That unwelcome thought pushed Devin to his feet. He drew his gun and loaded a shot down the barrel. His last encounter with wolves had left him near-dead, and only Arothk’s intervention had spared him. Devin had a feeling no ancient stone creature would save him this time. Pistol ready, he freed his sword and scanned the pathway. He’d been too groggy on first hearing the howl. Which way had it come? Ahead or behind?
“Holy shit,” Devin swore as he turned and slammed his back against the cliff. Another howl, except this time it came from seemingly everywhere. It made no sense. The bright moonlight allowed him to see far in either direction of the cliff-side road. No wolves. How could they be so close and yet not be seen?
A crackling of stone turned his head slowly to the cliff side itself. His eyes widened. His mouth went dry. Devin had pondered letting the firekin take his life if in the new world he had to fear his own campfire. That desire returned tenfold. An enormous leg of a spider slipped up and over the edge of his path and dug its claw into the hard stone. A second followed. Devin aimed his pistol between the two legs, waiting as if lost in a nightmare. A snarling wolf’s head appeared next, drool trembling from its lips. Its eyes were closed. Its white teeth shone in the moonlight. The rest of the wolf body followed, its four paws hanging limply from its body. No, it moved with the four ebony spider legs, each the length of a man, that sprouted from a bloody focal point in the center of its back.
The wolf’s yellow eyes blinked open. Then two more, and then two more, until eight such eyes stared hungrily at him. The thing howled, and Devin saw the dripping fangs of a spider wiggling beneath its pink raised tongue.
Stay calm, Devin told himself, as if it could be that easy. His pistol sighted straight between the two largest eyes. Splattering its brains across the snow seemed the best plan. He stared down the spider-wolf, preparing to take his shot. So far it hadn’t moved, only threatened from the edge of the cliff. His finger tightened on the trigger.
A new howl washed over him, and against his better judgment he spared a glance upward over his shoulder. A second spider-wolf descended from the sheer mountainside from high above. The first spider took advantage of his lack of focus and lunged. Devin’s shot glanced off the side of its head, tearing off an ear and ripping open two of its eyes. The pain was enough to stop it in its tracks, but Devin didn’t dare try to press the attack with his sword. Pistol holstered, the Soulkeeper tucked his head and sprinted down the narrow path.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Devin muttered as he fled. He could hear the creatures’ snarls behind him, could feel the thudding of their feet upon the rock and snow. It wouldn’t be long before they caught up completely.
Devin turned a sharp corner. The moonlight glittered strangely before him, his only warning before he slammed into what felt like a firm, heavy blanket. Thick strands of a spider’s web held him securely in place above the stone path. Devin screamed as he struggled, succeeding only in entangling himself further. Strands clung to his individual fingers, his face, and his chest. His wrists and ankles moved as if in chains.
This time, panic was impossible to hold at
bay. He kept expecting to feel the legs of the spiders wrap about him, spinning him around and around, wrapping him in webbing, preparing him for…
“Enough!” he screamed, using the cry to pull his mind free of its panic. The creatures weren’t attacking. Not yet. He craned his neck to look over his shoulder, and strangely enough the two spider-wolves stood side by side on the path, which was too small for the both of them. Their long spider legs curled below the path and clung higher up the mountain to make room. They softly snarled, drool dripping from their mouths, but neither approached. Devin watched with detached horror. Were they playing with him? Waiting for him to pass out? Or did they possess unimaginable cruelty and wish to toy with him longer?
A feminine form shimmered into existence between the wolves. The light did not touch her. Only the glint of her long, clawlike fingers reflected the moon’s embrace. Devin stared, convinced he was lost in a dream as she neared. One of those claws brushed across his neck. Warm blood trickled down his chest and throat, yet he felt no pain. Though this figure stood mere inches away, he saw only a deep black silhouette.
“What… what are you?” Devin asked, surprised by the slurring of his words. The world tilted off its axis, and his stomach churned unhappily. His mind fogged as if he’d drunk an entire bottle of rye whiskey.
“Hush now,” a woman’s voice spoke. So soft, so gentle and innocent. “Be not afraid.”
“I’ll try,” he muttered. His eyelids drooped. “But I… I think it’s too… too…”
His head hung low, his every muscle relaxed in the comforting grip of the web.
CHAPTER 8
Devin burst awake with a sudden clarity that baffled his previously drug-addled mind. He gasped in air, growing aware of a sharp pain in his neck. Everything around him was pitch-black, everything, that is, but for the long claw sunk an inch into his neck. Devin tensed, and he found his hands and legs thickly bound with webbing, holding him to what he believed was the wall of a cave.
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