A Tearless Reunion

Dear Human, I had expected Nial to simply stay at the monastery, awaiting Lilly’s return like a loyal puppy. In the meantime, I set about the task of corralling the pilgrims and monks onward toward the shrine. The closer we got, the more I began to suspect that the shrine was inside the largest of the mountains, the one that loomed above the rest and cast red light upon the heavens above it. Given that we were weeks behind schedule, it was all I could do to stop myself from Gathering all the monks, knocking the pilgrims out, and dragging them all the rest of the way to the shrine to complete my mission faster. I’ll be frank: I wasn’t confident that I could pull it off with Asuana there.

Plus, I had witnessed two of the monks engaging in “morning prayer” which involved the older of the two knocking out one of the younger one’s teeth and shoving his bleeding head beneath the surface of the nearby river until he began to drown. Things continued in this spirit for half an hour until they both bowed, embraced, and concluded their prayers. These were not the kind of people I wanted in my mind.

In watching them, I began to suspect that this sect of monks may in fact be conditioning themselves for the eventuality of being Gathered. This theory sounded far-fetched and paranoid at first, but the more I watched their strange behavior, the more I convinced myself that this was the only explanation. As you might expect, it can be hard to control a Gathered human who has conditioned themselves to accept (and even enjoy!) physical pain and suffering.

We had scrubbed all mention of the Gathering from ancient texts back when we helped the humans establish the South Sea Nations. But in watching the “morning prayers,” my doubts began to form. Perhaps this order of monks who guarded the shrine were more enlightened than the average citizen of the South Sea Nations. I dreaded the prospect of having to Gather and break one of them, much as you might dread the prospect of eating food that had clearly spoiled (or, more accurately, that had purposefully spoiled itself to spite you).

So I followed, and when I needed to kill, I did so in ways that did not trigger the Gathering. If you have been paying attention, you may suspect that this means I did not kill them myself. You are right. The only way to kill a human and avoid the Gathering is to convince a different human to do the killing for you: a long-accepted, loosely-regulated morlish practice whose word in our language roughly translates to “using a shadow mercenary.”

Who then, did I use as the murder weapon? I will not tell you just yet, for I have studied human literature. And I know that “spoilers” are not generally appreciated. The only reason I brought the matter up is to explain that my three-part plan was this: corral the humans toward the shrine, gradually kill off the monks (or Nial, if he showed up) with my shadow mercenary, then make the final decision about whether to Gather Asuana when we had reached the shrine. Such decisions cannot be made lightly.

That brings us full circle: back to Nial, whom I observed galloping past me as I sat pondering matters of fate. We morls are quite accustomed to shaping the fates of human beings, so we often conjecture that there are other forces even more powerful than we, forces that shape our destiny. In an age long past, there were (my mother tells me) many strange creatures: giant lizards called “dragons,” giant panthers that could be ridden into battle, and so on. It was an age with stone cities that stretched across the horizon and towers that scraped the sky, bound together by Ancient magic that has since been lost. It was an age of heroic humans and epic battles between our races.

Not to brag, but we morls pulled ahead in the Game long ago. One of our most clever moves, if you ask me, was to assist the human race in forgetting they are even playing. Yes, we’ve had our hands in the shaping of human societies and the editing of human history for quite some time, the South Sea Nations being just one iteration of many. Our editing of human lore has cut down on the number of so-called “heroes” that might gallop in at the last moment, much as Nial seemed to think he was doing here.

Sometimes, though, when your race seems to be playing the Game better than it should (given that, until now, you did not know there was a Game!), instead of becoming frustrated, we take a deep breath and remind ourselves that the Game is complex, with deep rules that perhaps even we morls have forgotten over the millennia. There was much of this deep breathing when the South Sea Nations put up unexpectedly strong resistance during our first invasion, largely due to heroes like Madam Bela. Suffice it to say that when I saw Nial pursuing the pilgrims, I concluded that Fate had brought Nial back into my small sector of the Game for some larger purpose. It was the first moment I considered that perhaps I should Gather Nial, as well as Asuana. I couldn’t believe I was thinking it! But, as we morls are fond of saying, the Game is one of “nuance within nuance within nuance…”

When I rounded a bend and the black mountain came into full view, I stopped, stunned by its awesome height. It would have risen higher than any other peak, but where the snowcapped top ought to be, there was only a vacant cavity. The slopes were black, sweeping down for miles in which nothing grew. Then—at the mountain’s base—a riot of growth began—trees so green and thick that they had no place in the cold, arid mountains. The dead bodies of two monks lay beneath a small grove of trees.

The pilgrims were about a quarter of the way up, climbing the switchbacks like small ants.

“Lilly!” I called. My voice echoed from tree to tree, from mountain to mountain. The ant-sized party stopped. A faint echoing call came back.

***

In spite of myself, I noticed Lilly’s shoulders before anything else. They were dark and tanned but still beautiful—accentuated by the way she had cut the sleeves from her mountaineering coat. The alteration was motivated by more than style; the temperature on the mountain was every bit as hot as the desert—creating a surreal effect when I saw snow falling in the distance, where I had just come from. I was sweating when Lilly ran to me and threw her arms around my neck.

“Yuck,” she said, pulling away. “You’re all—” Her eyes fell upon my lack of hair. “That’s… new.”

My face burned. “I didn’t have a choice.”

Octavius took this moment to explode at Asuana. “Well? Now what? We’ve wasted half our day waiting for a necromancer to catch up. I assume we’re at least going to tie him up again.”

Asuana ignored him and clapped me on the shoulder. “He’s not a necromancer.” Then, eyes on Lilly, she said, “But back at the monastery, he told me that you are.”

Lilly’s face turned white. She looked at me, scared and hurt. “You told her?” she whispered.

A period of stunned silence gripped the party.

“No, I-I…” I stammered.

Then the Hunter said, “Naw, just kidding. He didn’t spill the beans. You did, though, just now, Lilly.” Lilly, face red, began to stammer some kind of protest to Octavius, but Asuana cut her off. “Look, I figured you were probably a necromancer, and I’ve let you keep the secret long enough. Now that the beans are all out in the open, don’t we all feel a lot better?” No one voiced agreement or disagreement. Octavius, though, looked horrified. “Doesn’t it feel good to not keep secrets for once?” Still silence. “Fine, maybe not. But there it is. Lilly is a necromancer, the daughter of Torin Thanata, the Fourth of the Five. That very likely makes her one of the Five. We already know that Professor Octavius is number Five, Gwen is number Three, and Jonny is number Two.” The Fool was watching Asuana’s lips intently, seeming to sense the tension in the conversation. “Everyone on this pilgrimage who isn’t one of the Five has already been eliminated, except for Nial and myself. Even the brothers are being eliminated, one by one. Octavius, I know you don’t trust necromancers or Nial, but I ask you to trust me. Or at least trust logic, the only good explanation for what’s happening is that the morls like Father Ori have been writing the story up to this point. But soon, that will change.”

Benji, the one remaining monk, said, “Perhaps we should make camp? The site is just around the bend. When we enter the shrine cave, we can finally be certain that… certain ears cannot overhear us.”

Lilly’s sweaty fingers intertwined with mine as we walked our horses further. For some reason, I thought of the Sorcerer of Moons card that bore the names “Torin Thanata / Brodrim Overlai” in Father Ori’s elegant handwriting. I wondered if she was excited or terrified, knowing she was on the verge of completing her quest. Her face, though, was stony and unreadable.

***

Hot wind gusted out of the cave mouth, a volcanic cavity in the side of the mountain. “We’ll camp inside,” said the Hunter. She plunged into the darkness, and we all followed without question. Walking into the tunnel was like walking into the belly of a dragon. I began to sweat instantly. One of the monks lit a torch, making things even worse. My eyes stung from sweat. It was also raining; condensation clinging to the ceiling of the cave drizzled incessant droplets on my bald head.

“Do we have to camp in here?” asked Gwen Florence. “It’s disgusting.”

“It’s our biggest advantage,” said the Hunter, still walking deeper into the cave. “Father Ori will follow, has to follow. He needs us. It may seem like he’s in control. But if he wants to find the shrine, he’ll have to follow us. So trapping him…” she stopped when the tunnel took a sharp curve and revealed a massive stone doorway. “…is a matter of trapping ourselves. We’ll set up the tents up beyond this door.”

Peering closer, I noticed that the door bore an ancient mark in some language I couldn’t recognize. Octavius was already inspecting it from various angles. “Hmm, very old. Probably ancient morlish.”

“Older,” said Asuana and Benji at the same time.

“I’ve seen it before,” said the Singer. Before she could explain, I realized that I had too, in a dream: it had been carved on the outer gates and walls of the city. “I don’t know why but I feel like it means ‘morls may not pass.’ Or something like that.”

“It was on every door in the ancient city,” said Lilly. “I saw it.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

Benji and Asuana looked at each other. “Not yet,” said Asuana. Then she placed her hand on the symbol, causing it to glow briefly. The door clicked open, and she pushed it the rest of the way. On the other side, the tunnel continued, deep into the mountain, but Asuana called a halt just on the other side.

Benji passed around canteens. “Shake them, and they refill,” he said, demonstrating.

“Could have used some of these in the desert,” muttered the Wizard. “Poorly planned trip, if you ask me.”

Asuana closed the door behind us and sank to the ground, back against it. Then she closed her eyes with a sigh of relief. The rest of us settled down, too, unrolling sleeping bags and trying to get as comfortable as we could in the hot, damp bowels of the mountain.

***

Asuana and Benji took me aside, deeper into the tunnel, where we found another, identical door. The same symbol glowed a faint green, and a glowing crystal set in the wall beside the door provided additional light. The shadows on their faces made them look all the more grave. “We don’t have much time. One of the pilgrims is a shadow mercenary for Father Ori,” whispered Asuana. “It’s the only explanation for how he could have killed our other brothers without Gathering them.”

My stomach clenched, immediately aware that I had just left Lilly behind at the campsite. “Who is it?” I whispered. “I mean, are you sure? How do you know they weren’t Gathered?”

“When a member of our order is Gathered,” said Asuana, hesitating, “let’s just say, we know.”

“Our order?” I said, blinking at Asuana. “You’re part of it? The Order of the Mad Morl?”

Asuana nodded. “My sisterhood’s convent is in Seadom. To the outside, we call ourselves the Sisters of the Lighthouse and do charity work. But underneath, we are part of the Order of the Mad Morl.”

“You beat each other up too?” I said.

“And worse,” said Asuana grinning. “But those are stories for another time. Our order has been waiting for this moment. Now that fate would have it that you, Nial, are standing here in front of me with your head shaved and our symbol, I presume, on your arm, it can only mean one thing. You’re part of it all too.” For some reason, I was surprised to see real excitement in her face, a kind of playful exhilaration that made her eyes crease at the corners. In Benji’s eyes, I saw a similar, barely contained joy. I felt my own heart leap, though I didn’t know why.

“The shrine is through that door, isn’t it?” I said, knowing somehow that I was right. Maybe it was the heat that radiated out from the door. Maybe it was the way the ground beneath my feet rumbled faintly.

“I can’t tell you everything yet, Nial,” said Asuana. “Let’s just say that we all, in some way, depending on how you look at it, want the same thing. Would you say that’s true, Benji?” Benji nodded. “We all want to get to the shrine. Right? The pilgrims want it. Father Ori wants it. And our Order wants it.”

“I’m guessing it’s a bit more complicated than that,” I probed.

“The thing is, we don’t have to make it complicated,” she said. “That’s my point. Because we’re about to try to do something pretty dangerous here. And when we’re doing that dangerous activity, things might get complicated, so it’s good to remember that, at the end of the day, we all want to get to the shrine. In fact…” She looked at me to make sure I was paying attention. “Not only does Father Ori want to get to the shrine, he wants us to get to the shrine.” She waited for it to sink in. “And guess what? We even want him to get to the shrine.” I squinted to show that I was confused. “Our order, your order, of monks and nuns who have been working in secret for since before you were born want very much for Father Ori to get to the shrine. Look, kid, I’m basically ranking you up to, what would you say, Benji? A tenth level initiate in our order?”

“Eleventh, at least,” said Benji.

“We don’t exactly talk about these things right when we initiate someone, which is why you didn’t learn about it right after the shaving ritual.” Asuana took a deep breath, and I realized that it was probably annoying to have to explain all of this to me on the basis that some guy had a dream with me in it and that I might, maybe be helpful in some complex plan that now had to be explained to me. “I’m going to have to give you an abbreviated version, and I’m going to need you to just listen and try to grasp the bare minimum scraps of knowledge that will help you survive. And do not, for once, fish for details you can write in your book later.” It then occurred to me that people might be censoring their words around me in an effort to edit what I might or might not write down about them. I didn’t know whether to be offended or flattered.

“I get it,” I said. “I won’t ask annoying questions. And just so you know, I care more about keeping Lilly safe than publishing a book after all of this is over.”

“Good,” she said, “then tell me back the most important thing.”

“We all want to get to the shrine?”

“What else?”

“We want Ori to get to the shrine?”

“Yes, and do you think he wants us to get to the shrine?”

“I would guess so, since I’m guessing he wants to Gather some of us when we get there.”

“The thing is,” said Asuana, “the one tiny thing we don’t have in common with Ori, is that we don’t want Father Ori to know we want him to get to the shrine.”

“Hmm,” I said. “This would explain why you tried to stab him but didn’t kill him back at the inn. I have no doubt you could have killed him if you wanted to. Was it just to throw him off about the plans?”

Asuana rolled her eyes. “Nial, please stop sucking up,” she said, making me blush. “Plus, if you think that’s impressive, keep in mind that we’re about to try to pull off something I’ve only done a couple of times in my life…” She took a deep breath “…trap a morl.”

“I knew it,” said Benji, practically bouncing. “I knew she was going to say that.” He was a little too excited, making me wonder just how high ranking Asuana was. “I never thought I’d get a chance to do this with the Asuana,” he said, confirming my suspicions that Asuana was up there.

“Yes, yes,” she said, rolling her eyes. She leaned close and explained, “Just between you and me, Nial, in our order the term ‘Asuana’ is more of a title, less of a name. It means ‘morl trapper’ in a very old language.”

“So we’re trapping Father Ori?” I said. “To… make him think we don’t want him to get to the shrine?”

“And,” said Asuana, “to give us time with the shrine ourselves. This is the dawning of a new age for our race. I’m kind of hoping the shrine has something to say about that.”

I got chills thinking about how strange it was that somehow I was standing here at a time when millions of others were huddled in their houses across the nations wondering what was going on with the invading morls and perpetually blackened skies.

“How do we trap him?” I asked, determined to be helpful and not to cause anything important to become bumbled.

“We use…” said Asuana, speaking slowly and deliberately, “the fact that he wants what we do.”

“Plus,” said Benji, “the fact that he can’t pass through either of the doors without our permission. So he has to talk.”

“So we just bargain with him?” I said.

“I just bargain with him,” said Asuana. “I bargain with him a bit. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll hit him over the head with something.” When Benji seemed puzzled at the crudeness of the plan, Asuana said, “Look, you’d be surprised how often the simplest plans work.”

“So what role do I play?” I asked.

“Keep watch,” said Asuana. “One of the pilgrims is working with Ori. We know Father Ori didn’t kill the brothers himself. Could it have been Gwen, using her voice? Could it have been Jonny, with his undocumented gifts? Could it have been Octavius, with mysterious powers up his sleeve? Or… and yes, Nial, I must say it aloud… could it have been Lilly, the daughter of a powerful necromancer and no doubt a powerful one herself? So, all I ask is that, while I’m doing the delicate work of bargaining and/or knocking out Father Ori, your job is to keep watch on everyone else. Preferably without bias.”

Just then, Lilly’s shout echoed down the tunnel, spiking my adrenaline. “Um, Asuana! Benji!” There was a quaver in her voice. “Someone is knocking at the door!”

***

Knock. Knock.

“Ignore it,” said Asuana, striding back into camp and making a point of settling onto her sleeping bag and shaking up one of the canteens. After taking a long drink of water, she looked at each of us in turn before saying, rather loudly, “Let’s make him wait until morning.”

Silence. Then a quicker Knock knock knock.

Again, in her loud voice, “No matter how much he knocks, we’ll just sit here. And if he’s too annoying and keeps us up all night, then we’ll sleep in and it’ll be even later. He might even have to wait until noon!”

Father Ori’s faint voice from the other side seeped between the cracks, “Time is of the essence.”

“Then shut up and wait until I’m good and ready,” snapped Asuana. To my surprise, there came no more knocking. When it had been a good minute of silence, Asuana told us, “Tonight is your last night. The last one in which you’ll be the person you are right now. Tomorrow morning, we’ll be entering the shrine. And we will never be the same.” Benji’s head was bowed, but he nodded slowly, affirming every word Asuana said with reverent fear. She went on, “I don’t know why, but I can’t help but feel that everything we do tomorrow is going to matter very much.” I thought of the apocalyptic dreams I had been having for weeks now. “So take your time tonight to reflect on what I hope has been a life worth living.” Her eyes fell on me. I knew, somehow, that she was telling me that this might be my last night to write.

I think Lilly must have understood what that meant to me, because she didn’t protest when I removed myself to catch up on my writing. Now that I have caught up, I suspect I will sit here and make up wild conjectures about what is going to happen tomorrow. Perhaps then, after terrifying myself, I will go to Lilly, or she will come to me. I know our hands will be sweaty, but I hope that we end up holding hands. It would certainly make me feel better to have her near me on a night like this.

Dear Human, a fun fact! This is the point in the story where Nial’s physical manuscripts end. He never wrote onto real paper again, after that night. The rest of the narrative, I acquired differently.