Take the image of something Shaped back into his home? The thought prompted a shudder, bone-deep. Why would he ever think of such a thing?
Perhaps the thing had the power to turn his heart. He could feel the draw of it, an oddling, silent, thrum mimicking his heartbeat. All the taleKeepers warned how there was a arch of unnatural stone and briar that guarded an evil place—a place where Chepiś sorcery had festered and gone mad.
He should go back. Leave this forbidden place behind and never think upon it again.
Deliberately, Tokela rose, eyed the thing, then turned away.
A sharp crack! made him whirl back towards it, hand to knife.
The gate… entryway… whatever-it-was spoke again, with another crack then a deep drone. Shards of what looked like SkyFire chased across its surface—only this flared blue-white, not gold, amidst pitch. Tokela froze beneath the burst of light and sound, staring, transfixed, whilst all the while the thing flashed and leapt, speaking… n’da, it was a Dance. It moved and sparked akin to the rare Star metal he'd occasionally seen in trader hands, or the shimmer-melt writhe of copper in a consecrated forge.
It seemed full of intention. It seemed… alive.
Perhaps it was. If something Danced, his dam’s dam had once said, then ša wasn’t it, wasn’t a thing. Ša had a place on Grandmother’s belly, and a name.
So Tokela jerked his chin upward, answered with the outLand name used by taleKeepers. “You are t’rešalt.”
Another spackle of light and sound, as if in acknowledgement.
Names had power. His own, never spoken even amidst his family, had meanings coiled like serpentKin beneath: Tohwakelifitčiluka. Eyes of Stars.
Chepiś, it was said, had come from Stars. The same Stars forbidden to any save the ancestors.
Look where it got her.
It got her with me.
Had this been the same place through which his dam had passed to meet with Chepiś? Could it answer riddles?
Tokela wrapped his arms about his knees and rocked back and forth, contemplating the entry with darkened eyes and darker thoughts. The t’rešalt smelt of Sky gathering a storm, and emitted a strange, not-quite-croon that teased at the edges of hearing.
A question? An answer?
He lurched upward, drew the dagger from the sheath at his calf, and strode forwards.
“I TRIED,” Inhya said, settling beside the hearth.
Sarinak said nothing, laying the meal before her with no less of the grave pride he’d shown upon their firstdark’s sharing of hearth and blanket. The horseClans moieties required a spouse who could provide a good meal, a good tipo to shelter a family, and a fine string of horses. Sarinak a’Naišwyrh had, of course, possessed none of those. So in wooing Inhya a’Šaákfo, he’d learned from his granddam how to prepare more than trail food. He’d set up a scrim of colourful woollens within the dens where so many of his tribe had espoused their mates, and if the gathered mounts had been, instead of the lithe horses of her birthing-tribe, several braces of stout dogs and a small herd of curvehorns—they were enough to pull any travelling rig she would care to load.
Even Inhya’s granddam had given grudging approval to “that Mound dwelling whelp’s efforts.”
The Hoop had spun nearly thirty winterings since Inhya had accepted Sarinak’s offerings, but in this much he still insisted: upon each quartering of Brother Moon, with skills uncustomary to males a’Naišwyrh, he’d cook a meal with his own hands, upon their own hearth, in their own company.
Such times, naturally, were a perfect opportunity to speak of heart matters.
“I tried,” Inhya ventured again.
Sarinak put a wide-mouthed copper drinking bowl between them and poured steaming water from a fat jar. A shrug lifted his broad shoulders. “You waste breath with that one.”
“Little breath is wasted in what talk is being made.”
“You worry overmuch about talk. Folk are made to jabber. It means nothing.”
“I found him up Overlook.” Sketching lay upon her tongue; she bit it back. Her birthing-tribe held symbol makers in reverence, but Naisgwyr’uq had suffered from their proximity to forbidden Shaper’s places. They allowed no such tolerance. The twisted remnants of Winnowing, so long ago but lingering, had burnt hot-deep into the memory of her spouse’s tribe. Her tribe.
Sarinak crumbled spicebark into the steaming copper basin. The heady, warm scent rose, curling about their den. Yet such comfort did little to allay concern.
“I took others to the felling duty.” Sarinak sank onto the blanket beside her. “Tokela is too like his dam, heedless of honour or propriety.”
And even moreso had Winnowing’s memory leapt into flames when Tokela’s dam, sister of Sarinak’s sire, had defiantly fanned them to consort with outLanders.
Lakisa. The whisper within Inhya’s heart would never pass her lips. Respect and mourning. Love… and fear. Your son becomes lost in River’s song, sees in Her what none should. Makes likenesses of Them.
Surrendering to such things could become an initial step down an illicit path. First the lure of an Elemental, then the thrall leading to possession, and from that merely several steps more to the ultimate transgression: manipulating the Elementals.
Shaping.
It was why any transgressions amidst their own were cleansed by the Alekšu or, if necessary, purged. It was why Chepiś and their places were anathema. Chepiś honoured nothing, used frightful abilities to twist things into abomination with what Power their kind had long ago Winnowed from Grandmother’s heart. The cost was high, true: those made outcast as with Sarinak’s younger brother; or like to Inhya’s own brother, who’d fallen possessed in adolescence. At least Palatan had been cured, and now helped others so cursed.
Her thoughts lingered upon him, fond. Palatan should arrive soon. First Running should last a quartering of Brother Moon; the councils and festivities ran for several Suns before and after. Surely they could speak of her fears for Tokela…
N’da, her brother’s empathy would be tested with this. Palatan, like others, might suspect the rumours of Tokela’s siring for truth, but he’d no proof. Even Sarinak
