“You foolish child!” the crone’s words lashed in time with the whipping of her cane.

“Ow! What’s the big deal? I only wanted to see what it’s like!”

This only fueled the old woman’s fury. She struck the boy three more times in quick succession, each time the small hut was filled with the whoosh-crack of the stinging switch.

The boy whimpered, but he did not cry out.

“That is enough, Mind-Mapper Litana,” an ancient figure whispered from her place of honour at the center of the hut. She was all but identical to Litana in appearance, but for every wrinkle the mind-mapper had, her Guide had a dozen.

“I’m sorry, Matriarch, I forget myself. The boy,” she sneered, “he shames me so. I can scarcely tolerate his presence.”

“It is not the first time that the Gift has been misused, Litana, and it shall not be the last,” a bald man with skin like tanned leather said softly and sagely, a barely perceptible smile playing on his cracked lips.

Litana averted her gaze, a distant memory weighing her down with shame, “An unjust comparison. I will not suffer being likened to this vermin,” she prodded the boy tentatively with a toe, as if his qualities were contagious, “he is an offence to the senses, and a blight on our people. We should have listened to his father and left him for the vultures on that most unfortunate day of his birth.”

“Mind-Mapper Litana does have a point, Guide Nitak,” a bearded, crooked man said thoughtfully, “it is unbecoming to compare a mapper’s curiosity with a creature whose very existence is proof that even the gods can make mistakes.”

There were six of them in total, sat on cushions in a rough semi-circle inside the round hut, its walls formed of baked mud. The Guides were often found here, or at least their bodies were. The journeys the Guides underwent, the leagues they travelled, were not feats of foot and flank, but the endless exploration of the eternal, shared soul.

Bundled in the center of the room was a young boy. The child could be no more than eight, but that exact figure was neither known nor relevant, as his people put little enough stock in the passage of the sun across the sky; it was as trivial to them as the plight of the fish to the sea. All that was visible of the boy beneath his shredded rags were his eyes, welling with tears, but locked in hate and hurt. He shifted within his layers of offcuts, careful not to expose any skin for Mind-Mapper Litana to aim at. Litana was as skillful with a cane as any Dhorm with a sword. If she knew anything about her son, it was how to cause him pain.

Nitak’s milky eyes were brimming with pity as he regarded the boy, “You are too harsh, Guide Banta. The boy carries our Gift, therefore he is one of us. Whatever other misfortunes fate has dealt him are irrelevant, we exist in here,” he wrapped his head with a crooked knuckle, “not out here,” he waved at the surrounding walls of the hut, and the world hidden from sight beyond it.

Banta shifted awkwardly, blushing at his faux pas, “Guide Nitak is of course correct. Still, I find it curious that the orchard of life should bare fruit quite so twisted in body and soul; our people have at else times been blessed with the ripest of fruit. I wonder at what point we went astray.”

The matriarch held up her hand, palm facing outward. Her signal sent a pulse of silence throughout the chamber, that hushed even the Guides’ laborious breathing.

“Enough. We are not here to discuss the boy’s place in this tribe; that decision was made at the time of his coming, and was settled by the Hive of Guides in that when, as is our way. There will be no more questioning of the Hive’s judgement.”

Banta and Natik bowed their heads in acceptance, and even Litana allowed the cane to fall to her side.

The matriarch sat up as straight as her curved spine would allow, “Now our purpose is to dispense wisdom, not judgement or punishment. The boy not only has the Gift, but he has talent as well. He does independent of the Hive what others struggle to achieve even with the support of their cohorts. His skills will one day be a great boon to us, if he does not ruin himself first,” she fixed her eye upon the young one as she uttered these prophetic words, “Now, explain to us, child,” the matriarch inclined her head, setting her sagging jowls wobbling in a pendular motion, “why is it that our meditations are interrupted by an aspiring mind-mapper and a juvenile scorpion?”

The boy looked at Litana before speaking, perhaps afraid that to do so would be to invite more pain, “I wished to see through its eyes. I imprinted myself upon the creature, as I have been taught to imprint others.”

The matriarch did something which may have been raising an eyebrow, it was hard to tell, “Why did you wish to imprint yourself on a pest?”

The scorpion in question lay at the matriarch’s feet, long since killed. It sat there as if on trial, its yellow-brown body coiled up in sympathy with the boy who had, earlier that morning, worn its carapace as his own.

“I…” the boy looked to his mother once more, “I wished to know another body.”

“Why a scorpion? The very sight of one is an ill omen,” The ancient lady reflected.

“Was that the draw, young one? Did you feel some comradery with this creature, outcast to outcast?” a broad-chested Guide asked, not unkindly.

“Uh, actually, no. It was just kind of,” the boy shrugged, “there.”

There were murmurs among the guides.

“The sooner we welcome him into the fold the better,” Natik said, “to make a jump so effortlessly is unprecedented. This part will be a welcome addition to the whole.”

“He has much to learn before he will be of any use to use,” the matriarch said, “You were very almost lost to us. Your soul would have perished along with this scorpion, or else been lost to the aether, if your kinfolk had not seen you for what you were. Tell me, boy, do you know why your actions have evoked ire in Mind-Mapper Litana and my kindred Guides?”

The boy looked from face to face, not cowering from eye contact, “Because it is believed that a mind-mapper’s role is to imprint the souls of others, not to move his or her own,” his words had the cadence of a recited litany.

“And you question this?”

The boy shrugged, “I can do it, so why shouldn’t I?”

“I fear we are wasting our time with this one, Matriarch,” Banta grumbled.

The matriarch shushed her peer with another gesture, “Even now your language is disturbing. You talk of the ‘I’, and not of the ‘we’. It is the duty of our mind-mappers to be in service to the whole, not in service to themselves. You would do well to remember this,” she said to the boy.

“He is but young,” Nitak defended.

“Careful, Guide Nitak, presently we find your language no less troublesome,” she returned her attention to the apprentice mind-mapper, “The reasoning should be obvious, even to you, but, as this is not the case, we shall educate you. Tell me, boy, why does a mind-mapper not make the leap themselves?”

“Because they’re not as good as me?”

The matriarch pursed her lips, “We cannot predict which will land you in more trouble - your ignorance, or your poor sense of humour. You would do well to rid yourself of both, before they prove your undoing.”

“I am sorry, Matriarch,” Litana apologised, “I know not where this one’s corruption comes from. I assure you it is not from his sires.”

“We talk now to the boy,” the matriarch warned, “Either you do not know, or you willfully forget. Regardless, we shall tell you once more, and let this be the final time; the mapper opens the way for others, not for themselves. The body is like this hut. It is little more than a case, housing the true essence of a being within it. A mind-mapper is capable of opening the door to that hut, through which a soul may travel freely, or even be coaxed out.”

“This hut has a curtain, not a door,” the boy pointed out.

The matriarch ignored the interruption, “The mapper may then open another door, to a different hut. This allows the essence, the soul, to move from one dwelling to another. Do you see?”

“Yes, Matriarch.”

“So then, child, surely you see that it is impossible to hold open both doors, whilst simultaneously walking through them. That is why a mind-mapper must not, and cannot, move their own soul.”

---

The wyvern was close enough now that Vish could see which of its teeth most urgently needed flossing.

‘Pfff,’ Vish thought to himself, ‘What do they know?’