Kellehendros
Eternal Wanderer
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“You’re certain of this?”
Lunas Kal cinched the buckles on his pack, double-checking one of the straps; he had mended it less than a week ago, after snagging it on a branch during a hike through the swamp. It seemed to be holding up fine, but the distraction gave him an excuse to avoid his caretaker's gaze as he responded. The truth was that he wasn’t very certain at all, now that the day had arrived, and while Lady Surlissa was good at many things, she was particularly adept at seeing through him. Nerves. That’s all it is, just nerves. “It… It’s something I have to do.” To his own ears the words were unconvincing, but it was easier to pretend otherwise if he didn't have to hold her gaze while he said them.
And it wasn't their first time having this conversation either. But today, with the ceremony looming ever closer... He felt small again, anxious. There was some irony to the feeling. After all, the Hirii Zen were not known for their imposing stature. And while Lunas was dark of fur and a little bulkier than the norm for his people, it was perishingly rare for him to encounter someone he didn't have to look up to. The young man managed that well enough though, peering out at the world with gold-ringed eyes that were unique among his age-mates. More usual for his clan were the rounded ears that topped his angular head, the right missing a notch courtesy of a training mishap - Lunas was vain enough to find the scar rather dashing, though honest enough to admit the conceit for what it was - and the fur-covered tail that was nigh as long as he was tall. That tail curled slightly behind him before the Hirii relaxed it with an effort of will, and the young man let out a slow, focused breath as he hefted the pack up onto his shoulder and stood. "It's important."
Surlissa smiled, the expression touched with a hint of sadness. The Kaarme Oph was not only his foster-mother, but also the ruler of Rangaista Swamp, ancestral home of her Rotu. She was slender and serpentine, nearly ten feet long from the crown of her hooded head to the tip of her tail, and her scales were black as jet. She was not all of one color, however, for along her spine and flanks the darkness was broken up by interlocking diamond patterns of royal maroon, still brilliantly iridescent well into her fourth decade. At the moment she was relaxed, resting politely on her coils while she considered her charge. It was a far cry from the towering, straight-back posture she adopted in the great hall, but that didn’t mean she was any less formidable. “The truth often is, and dangerous to boot.”
The Hirii eyed her hesitantly. She had taken care of him for as long as he could remember - longer - and he loved the Kaarme as if she really was his mother. But… How could he explain, how could he make her understand? It wasn’t simply going out, taking a place, declaring himself to the world at large. He felt… incomplete in a way he couldn’t quite express. Restless. There was more, and he could be more. He was tired of waiting, of standing in the shadows and watching. There were times when the need to do was so strong it woke him breathless in the middle of the night, his mind buzzing in anticipation.
Sleep had been hard to come by all Lunas’ life though, and he much preferred that strange feeling of foreordination to the nightmares that usually haunted his evening hours: chilling visions of blood-soaked villages lit by fires that ravaged their hovels. Screams that rang into a smoke-clogged sky. Blades that flashed in the dark. The charnel stench of burnt meat and ashen decay, of places stained and defiled. And over them all... a winged figure, glittering in the flame-light red as blood, laughing, always laughing.
Old stories, dead stories.
Or were they? Lunas’ family knew better than anyone how long a shadow the past could cast.
He startled slightly, pulled from those grim thoughts by the touch of Surlissa's hand on his shoulder. "I just..." His own hands curled into fists as he lifted his head, surprised to find his voice steady. “He’s out there still.”
The sadness in the Lady’s eyes deepened. “Lunas…”
“No, ema. Someone has to find him. Justice must be done.”
She sighed. “Is it justice that you want, or vengeance?”
“He killed my mother,” the Hirii Zen shot back bitterly. The words were hard, heavy, a weight in his belly and a tingling tightness through his chest. “I never had a chance to know her - or my father. I never knew either of them.” Lunas looked away, struggling to lower his voice, to breathe. “Sometimes revenge is justice.”
Surlissa rose up from her relaxed position with all the speed of a striking serpent. Her eyes flashed as she towered over him, the hood about her head and neck flaring open in agitation as she changed from foster-mother to Lady of Rangaista in the space of a breath. “They are not the same. They are never the same.” The Kaarme ruler visibly restrained herself, taking a moment to calm and settle slowly back down. “Lunas, your mother was one of the best and bravest women that I have ever had the privilege to have known.” She sighed again, fighting some internal battle. “In his own way, your father was braver.” Her eyes, a maroon as rich as the markings on her scaled hide, sought out his. “For his sake, I ask you one last time: Reconsider. Do not do this.”
Lunas was silent for a long time, staring at her, struggling. He loved her, he did, but it was always like this. The half-answers, the implied truths, the not-quite evasions about who his father had been and what had happened to him. The Hirii’s voice was quiet, pleading. He hated himself, loathed how weak he sounded. “Tell me, ema. Please.”
It was Surlissa who looked away first. “I’m sorry, pieni, but I made him a promise.”
More than anything - in that moment - he wanted to hurt her. To say something cutting, devastating. Why shouldn’t she feel, even if just for an instant, a fraction of the helpless pain her refusal caused him? Hadn’t he done all he could to help her over the years? Hadn’t he… hadn’t he been a good son?
The Hirii Zen squeezed his eyes closed, walling the unworthy feeling away. It was hard, so very, very hard, and he was so tired. But the Kaarme Oph had given him so much, and she had asked for little in return. Swallowing the hurt, he nodded once, just once, and hugged her. “I… I don’t want to fight, ema, but I have to do this.” The words were easier to say when he didn’t have to meet her gaze.
Her arms went around him strong and steady. “I know, Lunas. You wouldn’t… You’re too much your mother’s son for anything else.”
He knelt at the foot of the Lady’s throne, less than an hour later. The audience hall was filled to bursting; it wasn’t every day the ward of one of the Seekers took a quest-oath of his own after all, and it was rarer still that the surviving trio were gathered in one place. The heat and clamor was enough to make Lunas wish his foster-mother had insisted on a private ceremony. The crowd needs their show. He smiled, shielded from the view of the multitude at his back, almost able to hear Chen Han’s basso rumble of complaint in his head. The big, broad Vastaa Ail stood to his left with ursine stolidity, projecting a stillness the young Hirii knew was a facade. Chen Han had never been comfortable in crowds. More than Surlissa and Ravel, his fellow Seekers, the Vastaa had withdrawn from public life. He had assured Lunas on several occasions that he was more than happy to spend the rest of his days cataloging books and manuscripts in the atheneum being built in the new Union capital.
“Your whiskers itch, lohik?” The faint rasp of the gruff voice to his right turned Lunas’ grin sheepish. Ravel was a distinguished old Koira - a distinguished rogue to hear him tell it - who now served as advisor to the Council struggling to bring the fractious Rotu together into the Union. Advisor, in his own words, was a polite substitute for spymaster, but Ravel was the nearest thing to an uncle the young Hirii Zen had ever had. Lunas’ mother had taught the Koira to read during their travels together, and Lunas had spent long hours in Ravel’s study discussing old books and philosophies with the spymaster on sleepy summer afternoons.
The gravity of his uncle’s tone was somewhat ruined by the wink he tipped the Hirii. Still, the young man fought to wipe the smile away. “No, sir. No problem here.”
If Ravel had a response to that it interrupted as Lady Surlissa, resplendent in the deep crimson and gold robes of her station, flowed forward. She favored Lunas with the briefest of nods before schooling her expression to one of regal neutrality as she addressed the crowd. “Welcome, friends and countrymen. You do us a great honor. Rangaista is no short trip from the capital, and we draw great heart from your presence. Together, you make the Union strong.”
The Kaarme Oph glanced down at her foster-son again and permitted herself a smile. “Today, Lunas Jocta is no longer a child. Today he becomes a man, and he has expressed to us that he wishes to do so by swearing the Oath of the Etsija. He would become Lunas Kal, following in the path of Footnit Kal, who laid down her life so that we - all of us - might build a better future for our children, for their children, and for all children yet to come.”
Lunas Kal… A shiver ran down the Hirii Zen’s spine, one that owed nothing to his prior bout of nerves. It was the great unspoken secret between the surviving Seekers and the young man. Lunas Kal, the name he would have had... if only his mother had lived, if his father had not gone… wherever he had gone. There was, Ravel had once commented, no better place to hide than in plain sight, and the Etsija - those who wished to follow in the line of the Seekers - often gave up their family names, symbolically joining the dead House of Kal. Not that Lunas had been forced to this choice. This was what he wanted, what he had always wanted.
“Now, Lunas,” Surlissa intoned, dragging his attention back to her as the hall fell into an expectant silence. “Have you come of your own free will, neither coerced, nor compelled by any other?”
The Hirii took a deep breath, steadying himself and raising his voice to answer. “I have.”
“What is it that you seek?”
His tail brushed lightly against his ankle beneath his traveling cloak, the contact nearly making him jump out of his own skin as he struggled to focus. Breathe. Just breathe. You can do this. Taking his own advice, Lunas let the silence grow, filling his lungs and slowly exhaling for several seconds before responding. “I wish to join the Order of Etsija.”
“The Etsija represent the best of us, those sworn to serve the people, to defend them. Will you bear this burden: to put the people first, before your own wishes, before the desires of your heart?”
Lunas lifted his head, meeting his foster-mother’s gaze. For a moment he was reminded of what they had spoken of that morning… What he desired, was that what was best for the Union, for its people?
He believed it was.
The Hirii’s voice was strong and steady, rising over the silent throng. “Gladly.”
He believed that with all his heart.
Perhaps the Lady saw something in his gaze, because for a moment she hesitated. It was just that - only an instant - but he saw a welter of emotions flash through her eyes. Anger, hurt, sadness… and acceptance. “So be it.” Her voice was quiet, but she squared her shoulders as if preparing to lift a heavy burden and let her voice ring through the hall. “Who then shall stand as witness on his behalf?”
“I shall,” rumbled Chen Han, his voice grumbling deep enough for Lunas to feel it in his bones.
“And I,” Ravel concurred, the faintest hint of amusement in his tone.
“Then by our right as Lady of Rangaista, recognized by the Union of Rotu, we say that Lunas Kal is recognized as Etsija, a Seeker.” Her amethyst gaze held Lunas as she spoke. “Be curious, that you might search out the truth wherever it may be found. Be brave, that you might defend the weak and helpless. Be honest, that all might know your word is your bond. Be just, that the people will turn to you for succor. Be merciful, that even your enemies may know you are a good man. That is your oath.” For several seconds, silence reigned over the hall, and then Surlissa struck, a lightning swift forehand slap delivered with enough force to rock the kneeling Hirii back.
“And that is so you remember it.”
Lunas reeled from the blow, ears ringing as his mouth filled with the salt-ferrous taste of blood. It wasn't that he had expected his caretaker to hold back, but he certainly hadn't been ready for quite so much commitment either. “I… I will,” the young man husked as his uncle helped him up and the crowd erupted into cheers. Then again, if what he suspected about what Surlissa suspected was true… perhaps he was lucky to still be conscious.
“See that you do, pieni,” the Lady returned tiredly. “But you’re not leaving just yet; we’ve guests to greet.”
“That was a good day,” Lunas reflected wearily, breaking a stick and tossing half of it into the campfire. Flame danced and crackled, spitting and sending up a faint gust of sparks that danced in the evening air, the only answer to his words. His companion, resting nearby on the log that formed his seat, said nothing in reply. “She was unhappy with me… but what could I do?” The Hirii Zen shook his head. “The warlords are the greatest threat to the existence of the Union. And the Red Butcher is the strongest of them.” With a flick of his wrist he sent the other half of the stick tumbling into the conflagration. “He betrayed the Seekers, everything they were fighting for, and he… he killed my mother.”
He let his golden gaze slide away from the dancing blaze to settle on his mute confederate, whose continued reticence was no great mystery. After all, it was only an empty thing of polished bone; its shadowed, empty sockets stared back at Lunas in inscrutable silence. The Lohikaarme skull had always fascinated him growing up. It was old - ancient - a relic of House Jocta from the fabled time of breaking known as the First Nightmare. A good listener the horned helm was - and an able defender - though it had little to offer in the way of advice. Sometimes it was enough to talk things through, to give voice to his frustrations and plans.
Lunas snapped another twig in half, sighing as he looked heavenward. Other times though… Other times there was no substitute for someone who could answer back. The problem was that there was no one he could trust - and not just because he was so very far from home. That sent the Hirii Zen’s gaze back to the silent skull, and he bounced one of the split pieces off it. There was no heat in his voice, only tired speculation. “I wonder if she gave you to me as an apology. A sort of advance ‘forgive me’ for delivering that letter.” The idea filled him with a formless sort of discomfort, a discontent that was hard to express in words.
“She knew. Of course she knew. Do you really think that Ravel kept secrets from her, after all they had been through? Or that she kept secrets from him?” The Etsija shook his head, discarding the other half of the stick and reaching into his pack. It was getting late, and he was in no mood to do more than gnaw through a trail bar before trying to get some sleep. His nightmares had become notably worse over the last week, and Lunas had spent near as much time laying and staring up at the dark heavens as he had sleeping. More probably.
In some ways, the insomnia was preferable to the troubled dreams, and the Hirii supposed if he was going to toss and turn all night he might as well get an early start on it. Perhaps tonight would be different. Maybe he would drift off to slumber and wake up refreshed, rather than jolting awake in the thin hours just before the sun rose, panicked and on the verge of screaming. “I should be so lucky,” he commented to the skull as it watched him rummage through his pack. “It’s getting to the point that I feel-”
He stopped, biting off the remainder of his words as his hand encountered a familiar wad of vellum crushed down at the bottom of his bag. Lunas slowly withdrew the crumpled missive, smoothing it over his thigh as he hunkered by the fire. There was enough light yet, between the flames and the distant stars overhead, for him to read by, not that he needed to peruse the letter again. The Hirii Zen knew every word of it; he had gone over it more times than he could count.
The epistle had come from his uncle, and it had provoked a meeting that had rocked his world, upsetting everything he had thought he had known. His fingers curled into the vellum, crushing it up once more as helpless fury welled through his chest.“Silmat auki, Etsija,” Lunas growled to himself. Eyes open, Seeker. It was almost a taunt coming from Ravel, from a man who had opened his nephew's eyes to so much.
If only his eyes had been open. If only he could have seen. But he had been young, for what such an excuse was worth. Young and trusting. Young and foolish. Young and - Enough. The Hirii pushed his self-loathing down, staring at the rumpled missive in his hand. His golden gaze shifted to the fire nearby and he lifted the note, about to cast it into the blaze.
Something stopped him, as it had so many times before. It was a hope dark and angry: the childish dream of one day seeing his uncle again, of throwing the epistle at the Koira’s feet and telling him - telling them all - what he had done.
Ravel and Surlissa had raised him, but the Hirii had spent long hours with Chen Han as well. The Seekers had their secrets, and the Etsija, hidden child of their assassinated companion, could understand that. Taking a deep breath, Lunas folded the vellum carefully and slipped it back into his pack, fingers touching lightly on the spine of a slender volume he had stolen from the Vastaa’s grand library.
They could keep their secrets. He had his own: A book from a land far, far away. A book about Bren, about a chance to change everything.
A chance to set things right.
Perhaps it was resolution that helped him find sleep that evening, or perhaps it was only an ironic twist. In slumber the dream found him just as swiftly, and as the banked fire snapped and popped near where the Hirii Zen lay, the nightmare took hold.
“He has your eyes.”
Lunas was laboring up a long, forested slope, his heart pumping hard as he gasped for breath.
“Better he didn’t, better he was-”
“There are stranger things he could have gotten.”
The Etsija’s ears twitched, swiveling back to track his pursuit. They were drawing closer, crashing through the heavy underbrush amid the braying of hunting horns.
“I would rather he took after you.”
“Funny… Of all things, that is what you would change.”
Here the grade was more pronounced and he slipped, whimpering; fear galvanized his limbs as his fingers scrabbled frantically in the loam. Arrows sang through the air, slamming into the nearby boles with humming malignancy. Questing digits closed around a gnarled root overhead and Lunas almost sobbed in relief, hauling himself up and skittering forward.
“It isn’t… I wouldn’t…”
“Some choices, my love, are not ours to make.”
The summit loomed above. So close… so far. Behind, he could feel the hunters drawing closer, the noose tightening as he burst from the thinning trees, but the young man knew he could make it. Hope gave wings to his feet as Lunas leapt and clambered over the rocks erupting from the previously arboreal soil. Something - an arrow? - slammed against his back with bruising force, staggering him into a boulder. Hit a plate… Glanced off. Keep moving! The Hirii kept his feet, wheezing and panting, heart in his throat as he reeled toward the standing stones that marked the crown of the cliff.
“He’ll never be safe.”
This time… This time he would do it, this time he would reach the stones. The Etsija knew it with the certainty that only comes in dreams and visions, and so he climbed, slid, clawed up the precipice amid a hail of whistling darts.
“Is that so different from us? From anyone?”
Beneath his fingers the stone was coming apart, crumbling away like a sandcastle beneath a rising tide. “No… No, no!” Lunas hurled himself up, dragging himself onto the cliff by main, manic force. The Hirii Zen heaved himself upright, reeling over uneven ground that bucked like a fly-stung horse.
“I suppose that you’re right...”
With a cry of mingled fear and exertion, the young man leapt, throwing himself at the crumbling, widening gap between the path and the crown of standing stones.
“In the end we all fly… or we fall.”
Lunas’ fingers grasped futilely at empty air as he began to fall, tumbling head-first down into a red-dark chasm where fire flared amid screams and howls of frenzy and pain. Wings, black as night, slick with blood, beat about the Etsija’s head as his ears were dinned with raucous, sinister laughter.
“Can you hear them, rat? Can you hear their screams? Let it all burn!”
The Etsija jolted awake, hand clenched around the hilt of his estoc. It rang from its sheath as he whirled up to his feet, slashing blindly. “Telan!” Turning, seeking, eyes blazing wildly, Lunas cried out in the ashy light of dawn. “Curse you, Butcher, I know you’re out there!” His chest heaved with frantic effort, heart hammering as his gaze searched for a target, a foe, a glimpse of feathered wings.
But there was no one. Only the Hirii Zen himself, and his silently watchful companion. The estoc’s tip wavered, dipping slowly to the ground and biting into the turf as the young man went down to one knee, bracing himself on the weapon’s guard and panting. He stayed that way for several minutes: eyes closed, the tightness in his belly loosening as he struggled to keep down a wave of acidic bile. Focus. Breathe. Think.
Think. That was it. He had to focus. Letting out a slow, measured breath, Lunas opened his eyes. The Etsija stared at the Lohikaarme skull for a long moment, golden orbs riveted to the unspeaking bone. Reaching out with one hand, he lifted the relic from its resting place, bowing his head and pressing the horned helm's osseous forehead against his own. “It… It was just a dream. Only a dream. Nothing but a dream…”
“You strap on your helm…” The voice sent a cold finger of ice tracing down his spine. “And it hides you - the real you. You become someone else. A Stranger, someone who can do the things that all of us know - deep down in our bones - need to be done. The things we're all afraid to do because we worry about what everyone else would think. So you put on the mask, and do what must be done. And when you take it off..."
The Hirii lunged abruptly to one side and hurled the skull in the direction of the voice; he rolled on into a defensive crouch, aureate eyes searching frantically again. No one. Still no one. But he had heard Sootfeather…
No, Sootfeather was a lie, had always been a lie, would always be a lie.
Regaining his feet, the Etsija winced and pressed a hand to his temple; his head was throbbing - a lancing pain beating in time with his heart. He kneaded vainly at the ache, but it proved stubborn, and eventually he gave in and raked his fingers down the side of his furred neck. Motes of dancing dust rippled up from the motion, borne away on the morning breeze. “You can tell yourself it was worthwhile,” Lunas mumbled to himself, the rest of the words his instructor had spoken. “That the cost was worth the paying. That the Other is to blame.” Of course you could. Always easier letting others bear the cost.
Tugging his estoc free of the ground with a grunt of effort, the Etsija sheathed it, reclaimed his pack, and then crossed the clearing. His confederate lay mutely at an angle, peering reproachfully from one empty orbit at the young man as he lifted it by one horn from where it landed after the hasty throw. The Hirii Zen tenderly brushed a few stray stalks of broken grass from the bone, and then stared once more into the vacuous sockets. “Will you hide me, old friend, one more time?”
There was no answer as Lunas turned the helm, fitting it snugly over his head and carefully doing up the straps.
There never was an answer.
But some things should not be taken for granted.
It took hours to reach the complex.
The roads were busy, but something about Lunas’ bearing parted the crowds before him. Helmed and hooded, the Hirii’s aspect was surely sinister enough for the average traveler to make way despite his short stature. As such, it would have been a swift journey, but for the unnerving suggestions of half-seen familiarity: A flash of light off dark scales, a wind-blown rustling of wings, the inexplicable scent of pungent lime. Each intruded demandingly on his pilgrimage, leaving him standing in the street and looking about himself in exhausted confusion.
It was impossible. They couldn’t have known. His foster-mother, his uncle, his old master-of-arms… Only Chen Han might have been able to hazard a guess, and only then if the Vastaa had discovered Lunas’ theft. One book out of a thousand others? No. No, it was impossible.
And yet, he felt the creeping sensation of eyes on his back as he weaved through the crowds. He heard whispers mixed in with the rippling water passing beneath the arches of the bridge. He glimpsed tantalizingly familiar figures carried along with the crowd coursing Supplicant’s Way.
Nerves. It was nothing but nerves.
And there was no time for nerves, so Lunas blocked it out, all of it. He focused on his feet, on the cobbles directly in front of him. One step at a time. Just keep walking. One step at a time.
He startled slightly at the touch of cool mist curling about him, condensing into dewy pearls along the hem of his cloak. When had… When had he become separated from the crowd at large? The press, the noise, it had all fallen away, replaced by the quiet, soothing sound of trickling water. A soft sigh escaped the fevered Hirii as the light, dim and diffuse where it reflected gently from the stone walls of the hall, melded pleasantly with the distant plip of dripping moisture patiently working away at its stone landing. He could feel the tension in his shoulders easing, the pressure that had been pooling between his eyes draining away.
For a minute, two, that was enough, and the young man stood in the passage without caring where he was or how he had gotten there. The sound of flowing water grew louder, as though he was approaching it. No, as if it was approaching him. After all, Lunas wasn’t moving. But he could feel it now, the rumbling vibration of a heavy deluge, the source of the misty curtain he had passed through.
It occurred to him, suddenly and bizarrely, that his bag was gone, and for a moment the Etsija tried to remember what had happened to it. Yet it was a distant curiosity, a sort of academic question, like the ones he and Ravel had used to debate: What had happened to the Lohikaarme? Was a man’s nature dictated at his birth, or a consequence of his upbringing? Was there such a thing as an unredeemable sin?
Alone in the semi-hypnotic rumble of the waterfall corridor, Lunas smiled at the memory. It… It hadn’t all been bad. Most of it had been good really. And yet… There had always been something missing.
He pushed the thought away and let his hands fall to his waist, lightly passing over his belt as he took inventory of his armaments: estoc, dagger, flail head, orbs… He had what he needed, regardless of where his pack had gone off to. More than those things though, he had certainty, an ember of glowing surety he had felt since he had sworn his oath. “I’m ready…” In answer, the flow of brawling water attenuated, parting like a curtain and opening the way forward.
The Hirii Zen stepped through the mist, shaking his head from side to side as he tried to clear his first dizzying impression of being underwater. Assuredly he found himself under water; the domed ceiling above was a disorientingly placed sea, as if the liquid had been wrenched heavenward by some unimaginable force to expose the dead reef below. The light filtering down through the reservoir above was wan, tinted cerulean and made fickle by motion as the water was drawn into an unnervingly silent whirlpool that dominated the center of the arena.
Lunas’ fur bristled as a nightmare voice slithered into his ears, a tone as cruel and mocking as the Butcher in his dreams. He gulped down air tainted with brine and decay, fighting reflexive panic as the swirling vortex-borne breeze tugged at his cloak.
“I’m not afraid. I am not afraid.”
His right hand unsheathed his estoc. His left drew out the trident dagger as he slowly curled his tail about his waist.
“I am Lunas Kal,” the orphan whispered to himself, “and I will make my mother proud.”
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