“You sent the spirit with him?” Blake huffed as he focused on placing one foot in front of the other. “He could have done it himself.”

“Ye’ve said.” Granny Esmer did not show any signs of exertion as she marched beside the Knight, carrying his bag without complaint. Not one to have others carry his burdens, Blake had surrendered when she insisted. Firmly, with a knuckle in his wounded side. “Ye’ve got a hatred of spirits I do no share. Demons, aye, no spirits.”

The high mountain air was cool in Blake’s throat and the sun was warm on his face as the pair climbed yet another mountain, trekking ever deeper into the mountain range east of Quincy Hill.

“You carried a body all the way out here?” Blake asked between heavy breaths. He kept them quiet, to hide his stress from the woman climbing ahead of him. A man of his physical conditioning should not be struggling where a seventy year old woman easily walked.

“Were no gonna bury her in town. Ye take issue?”

“No,” Blake assured her. “I am impressed. It is a great hike.”

“So yer breathing tells me. How’s yer side? Stitches hold, no blood?”

The wound burned and the half healed flesh itched as his innate abilities strove to make him whole. He took a moment to gather the energy to reply. The Granny Woman took his silence for shock.

“Do no be surprised, I know when a fool man’s too stubborn to admit he’s hurtin'.” She eyed him over her shoulder. “Though I 'spect ye know better than most. Hurts, but nothin' to be concerned ‘bout. With yer damn cheatin’ healin'.”

“God-given, actually. Kind of the opposite of cheating.”

“If ye can be snippy, ye’re comin' along fine.” A sly tone filled her voice. “This rate, ye’ll carry this damn bag on the way back.”

“How much further until we reach the burial site?”

“Why, got places to be?”

“Yes, actually. I would like to be on a ship upriver by now. Instead I am climbing mountains to exhume the grave of a powerful demon who has returned from the dead with inexplicable powers.”

“Mayhap ye’re too snippy.” Heat rushed into Blake’s face, more than the sun could account for.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I did not—”

“Remember it were my sister I buried here, alone, 'cuz she’d murdered the rest o’ her family? Don’t blame ye, I wanna ferget too. But I can no.” Granny Esmer paused at the top of the rise. “Ye get to avoid an awkward conversation fer now, Knight. We’re arrived.”

It took several seconds for Blake to climb up beside the Granny Woman, but once he did he saw the glade she had been talking about. Below the rise was a flat plain surrounded on three sides by tall stone walls, one of which they stood on. The fourth side was open to the downslope of the mountains, and facing the east where the sun could bathe the stone bowl in fiery morning glows each day. Geologically speaking, it was more of a box canyon than a glade, but Blake did not mention this to the woman who had buried her sister here, and could push him down the side of the mountain with little effort.

A stream ran down the north wall, forming a small pond surrounded by old strong trees, roots curled over the banks and upheaving the land around. For a protected area, there were few plants larger than knee high grasses, excepting the trees around the pond. Instead, a blanket of flowers, golden tickseeds, blazing firewheels, purple roses so dark they were almost black, brilliant blue violets, and dozens Blake could not even name spread out across the flat plain, a riot of colors with no place within the dull gray walls of the surrounding mountain walls.

The colors of the flowers, many of which had no business growing in this climate, distracted Blake for a moment from the defining feature of the canyon. From wall to wall, spaced mere strides apart, hundreds of mounds lifted into the air, ranging in size from knee height to above Blake’s shoulder. Gentle sloped mounds of dirt, overtaken by the ground vegetation, oblongs of ten foot length.

“This is a burial ground.”

“It’s where I buried her, aye.”

“No, I mean… do you not feel it? The death energy gathered here is overwhelming.” Blake closed his eyes and focused. The passing of a life left a residue on the world, even if the death had not resulted in a spiritual echo or haunting. The residue here was strong, and old. It had sunk into the bedrock, made itself a permanent feature of the land. Blake had not felt such an energy signature since the necropolis beneath Urbas Aeternal, where the first Ordis Ferrum had buried their fallen dead before they had even been named Ordis Ferrum.

And more than old, it was something Blake had never encountered before. Removed from its immediate flavor after life leaves, old death had a consistent feel or sense to it. A hazy gray color, a flat smell, a dull touch. Something there, but nothing to remark on. Those who could affect death of such an age would describe it differently. To Blake, and the huge majority of those who could sense death, it was boring. The only item of note in death of a great age was the age.

The field of death was old and dull. Very old, thousands of years old, but plain and boring. Except where it was not. The oldest death, as far as Blake could tell, was black and hard and twisted, a writhing mass of energy. Tendrils and hard claws spinning and gnashing and crushing. Strong enough to reach through the veil to almost touch the physical world, and far enough away to seem the other side of the moon.

The sight of it drove a spike of pain into Blake’s temple and spun his guts until he could feel his breakfast climbing his throat. To avoid vomiting in front of the Granny Woman, he changed focus to the other aspect of the canyon bothering him.

“It has been cultivated. Nature is not so neat in her placement. How did you miss this before?”

“I have missed nothin'.” Granny Esmer turned to Blake, wrinkles deepening with her frown. “There are things I could no say to ye 'til we arrived here. Things I swore would no leave this mountain.”

“Do they tell us how to kill a vampire succubus demon? Or any weaknesses?”

Granny Esmer scratched at her wrist, wide enough to be mistaken for a tree branch. “I dunno.”

“Then what good was this hike?”

“Ye must stop yer mumblin’ or I will beat it out of ye. I dunno, but I know o' a man who might.”

She pointed down the slope to a dark patch on the opposite wall. A dark patch Blake realized was an opening in the stone. In the opening stood an old man, white haired and bent over a staff. When he noticed Granny Esmer pointing at him from the slope, he lifted an arm in greeting before taking a seat on a log set in a semicircle with others like it. Before the man was a pit, full of dancing flames, bright against the dark wall. A light hidden from Blake until Granny Esmer had drawn his attention.

“One of the First People?” Blake asked. With his broad features and dress of animal skin, the man was a Native of the mountains. Blake had spent time with many First People shamans as he learned the Laws of the land, but only the People of the Plains, not the mountains and eastern forests.

“Talako. He has the answers we need.” She began to descend the cliff face, using a railless stairway carved from the stone. Another feature Blake had not noticed until his attention had been drawn to it. He followed, stepping with care to avoid stretching his wound.

“You sound sure.”

“If he do no, we can leave now. Talako has more’n thirteen decades, Knight, an’ has all the wisdom what comes with such age.”

“We come not seeking wisdom but knowledge.” The steps were narrow and turned back on themselves abruptly, without apparent pattern. The canyon floor never seemed to grow closer, but Blake counted fifty steps descended so far.

“Knowledge he has more than all the books ye’ve ever read, Knight. The whole of his people’s memories. Thousands of years. He will know.”

Blake’s eyebrows rose. “If that is the case, we better get down there right now. I have a hundred questions, only half of which are relevant.”

There was not room to pass around Granny Esmer on the descending steps to the valley floor, but Blake shuffled behind her as fast as he could. The constant movement had aggravated his side during the climb, but now he had something to focus on, the pain could be ignored like a shadow on the wall.

As soon as they reached the valley floor and Blake could pass around Granny Esmer, he did so and walked briskly to the log ring, excited to have someone to ask questions and learn.

“Ye best slow down an' avoid the trip wire ye’re 'bout to hit,” Granny Esmer called from behind him. Blake glanced down and found a thin strand of a near translucent material stretched across the path he was taking between the burial mounds.

“What is that doing here?” He would not have seen it before Granny Esmer warned him, both because it was hard to notice, and he had not considered hazards in his mad dash to the Elder. “Why does this place need tripwires? And Red Angel spider silk? Those are extinct on the continent.”

“This place needs protection from fools who bumble around with their eyes blinded.” The voice behind Blake was deep and weathered. There was wisdom in there, and loss. A voice fit for an Elder of an ancient people.

“Hello, Honored Elder, I…” Blake began to introduce himself but when he turned to look the Elder in the eye, he found nothing there. He scanned the surrounding area and found nothing there either. The man had vanished, leaving only rolling mounds of vibrant flowers.

“Did you see where he went?” Blake asked Granny Esmer.

“My eyes are no blinded like ye.”

“Hmm,” Blake scoffed. He narrowed his eyes at the Granny Woman. “I do not seem to be too blind. You are still here.”

“You see more than most, but you cannot see the embers in the flame.” The deep voice sounded again, this time from the opposite direction. Blake spun to find the speaker, but found nothing but flowers swaying in the gentle breeze.

“You are going to need to come out at some point,” Blake said, straining his ears to catch the turning of a leaf, the crunch of stone under a heel. There was nothing but silence and Granny Esmer’s breathing.

Silence struck him. He should be hearing the forest, the breeze, the animals. There was nothing but dead air. There was something blocking his senses. He could see much of the valley, but there were pieces hidden from view unless he focused, and even then things vanished once he ceased thinking of them.

“Very clever!” Blake called out. “I have not been trapped in a sensory Ward in a long time, and never one of this magnitude.”

Sensory Wards were a good training tool among the Iron Order and for hiding what one wanted hidden by more than mundane means, like keeping the last of the good whiskey from the sergeants. Blake had his experience with Wards, sensory or otherwise, but this was a Working of great significance. Unfortunately for the caster, once the subject knew they were in a sensory Ward, breaking the effects was a trivial effort.

With an outstretched hand, Blake drew the necessary runes in the air, giving each line its Meaning. Without Meaning, the runes were scribbles in the air. His Meaning had been twisted and bent by the war, but it was still strong, and whole. Years of practice allowed Blake to finish the crafting in the time it took to count the fingers on one hand.

“Aah!” Blake had been prepared for the glamour to fall and reveal the Elder and what other tricks he had been hiding, but he was not prepared for the Elder to appear mere inches from Blake’s nose, yellowed eyes piercing despite their age. The Elder possessed a fierce face, a sharp hooked nose and thick brows, hiding his eyes deep in the shadow. Pure white hair cascaded across his back, over the hand stitched leather shirt set across a broad chest. The chest had been broader, or the shirt had first belonged to a larger individual and it hung loose about the Elder’s frame.

The man did not respond in words, but a grin spread across his face, turning the cracks in his skin into canyons. “The Gray Man finally Sees.”

Blake shook off his surprise and backed up, putting a comfortable distance between himself and the Elder. “How did you craft such a convincing sensory Ward? It fooled so thoroughly.”

“A twisting of the Land, Gray One. One lost to the days before.”

“Could you teach it? I am Knight Blake Campbell of the Iron Order, Great Talako. Your teaching would be of great boon.”

“His name is simply Talako, Gray One.” The Elder’s speech reminded Blake of the Norse Svartalves, but it was impossible the accent would have come across to the New World. A quirk of languages, it must be.

"But there is more?”

“Talako.” The Elder tapped his breastbone with a knuckle. “Not all his name, but all his name he will give.”

“Enough,” Granny Esmer interrupted. “We are no here fer a magic lesson. Elder Talako, we come seekin' knowledge o' the Raven.”

The smile on the First man’s face vanished like fog in the midday sun. “The Raven is not something outsiders may know. All memory of the Raven lays buried but for two, and it will remain so.”

“It can no be so,” Granny Esmer said. “Akis has returned. Surely ye knew.”

The man was silent, his gaze focused on the southern wall of the canyon. Blake noticed one eye was cloudy blue, and reflected light without a source. When Talako spoke, it was a single syllable.

“Come.”

As they followed the Elder through the winding paths between the mounds of earth, Blake saw black lines in the dirt, bald patches of discolored ground where not even weeds would grow. To his life senses, the lines were a void, an empty gap without even the ambient life force of its surroundings. The center of the Sahara had more lifeforce than these lines.

The lines grew denser the closer the Elder led them to the south end of the canyon, climbing the stone wall as it rose before them. At the base was the dark cave where Blake had first seen the Elder appear, with the ring of wooden seats around the burning fire. Green wrapped bundles sat in the flames, steam rising from the seams.

The fire disappeared behind the tallest earthen mound as the Elder continued on the winding path through the barrows of a People dead thousands of years. Stone clicked under foot and Blake blinked in surprise. He had not seen the stone, but as he looked behind them, he saw the path had been paved in broad river stones for the last dozen yards. And the clicking came from the staff of the Elder, the staff Blake had not seen even as the Elder stood in front of him. The sensory Ward was still in place, but that was impossible.

He turned to Granny Esmer to express his incredulity, but she forestalled him with a finger to her lips. When he turned back, the Elder was standing still, propped on the carved staff taller than he was, even if his back had been straight.

The carvings were of strange design, unlike any Blake had seen before. He was unable to look directly at them for long, and the smallest glimpse made his eyes water. While it was possible this was still an effect of the sensory Ward Blake could not effectively break, he did not think so. It was the nature of the carvings. Rarely had he come upon runes of such power, even at the Heart of the Iron Temple.

The staff was not Blake’s focus, interesting as it was. The earthen mound behind the Elder was of greater importance. A great hole had been blasted in the side, exposing the inner burial chamber to the sky. Rubble strewn across the ground showed the blast had come from the inside of the barrow. From whatever had been buried there.

“I did no understand,” Granny Esmer said, voice barely audible over the breeze. “Ye should have told me she was moving. We could have stopped her again.”

“Talako fought her as she awoke. Four and quarter moons he spent locked in the dark, trapped. Finally, freedom.”

“How long have you been free?” Blake asked. He answered his own question even as the Granny Woman glared at him and the Elder of the First People watched around his staff.

“Three quarters of a moon.” It made sense. “Which means Akisoromokevheje was resurrected on the day Kindale fell. The Gate. It all comes back to the Gate.”

“Not a Gate, Gray One. A pinhole. A needle prick. The Other did not touch the world. It only Looked.”

“But what happened here?” Blake pointed to the hole in the earth behind the Elder. A large concentration of the black lines converged at the opening, but it was not the final destination of the lines. It was an origin point. The lines still flowed away toward the base of the southern wall.

“Akis returned, Knight.” Granny Esmer frowned. “But no everything.”

Blake waved a hand. “We know what happened here, or I think we do. What I want to know is why and how? There is no power, beyond a god’s, that can grant resurrection, and only a few gods at most.”

“The Raven, Gray One. The Raven and the Eye. You do not know all you think. ” The Elder stepped down from his lofted position near the opened hole. “Follow again. We will share food and minds.”

They followed, the Knight with more tattoos than skin and the Granny Woman with more age than life. The black lines grew more numerous again, following the First People Elder to the south wall. Clusters formed, and merged, until the ground was solid black, a path to the sheer black cliff. The ring of logs around the fire remained where Blake had last seen it, with the green wrapped bundles buried among the coals. A table and cloth covered grotto appeared, the Elder’s residence in the canyon.

Many things were visible now that had not been so before, but Blake wondered how things were still hidden. Whatever blocked his sight and other senses was powerful work, something he had seldom encountered. As the trio, one leading and two trailing, wandered through the maze of earthen mounds containing the last mortal remains of people who had walked the Earth hundreds and thousands of years ago.

These barrows had the black lines drawn through their surfaces, and the death energy about them was the strange twisted stuff Blake had felt before. But he realized, as they arrived before the fire and dwelling, the lines were not emerging from the barrows to collect here at the base of the wall. They were being pulled, siphoned, from the mounds. Gathered by some strange force for an unknown reason. Blake intended to find out. A collection of strange energy was rarely good.

A strong heat emanated from the fire, odd for the subdued size, but Blake was grateful for it. The feel of this place was not something he enjoyed. Ordinary warmth was a comfort. The Elder did not speak a word, but he gestured for the pair to sit. Blake took a log without thought, studying the canyon wall behind the Elder, where the lines of the dark energy converged.

Black stone rose there, the black and green stone of the Mayor’s manor, the lair claimed by the demon Akisoromokevheje. The feeling of slime and oily residue passed over Blake as he studied the stone, and he shook himself to be rid of it. Beside the Elder’s alcove was another cave. The Elder’s cave presented the impression of a home, a place of comfort, of belonging and life.

This other cave was a place of death, of oblivion. It was the void between the stars, the endless uncaring passage of time into the depths. The oblivion Blake had seen at the destruction of Kindale. The stench of the Other made itself known here, the malefic aura of indifference.

There, deep in the dark of the cave, there was a flash of white. The white of teeth, the white of a smile impossibly broad. Blake swore and tipped over backwards from his log, landing on his back in the dirt. A stone jabbed into his shoulder blade, but he paid it no mind. The shadow creature from the woods was here, and was a creation of this strange reject energy permeating the valley.

The Granny Woman was at his side before he could push himself up, blocking his view of the inner cave. She pressed a hand to his side, and the other to his temple. Her energy began to course through him, something he did not want. He sat, pushing her to the side, eliciting an affronted squawk.

“Do you see that?” he cried, pointing to the ever-widening smile. “There, the teeth in the cave! It is the creature I told you of, the shadow without eyes!”

When he looked at the Granny Woman, she was not looking in the cave. She met his eyes and smiled a sad smile.

“There is nothin' there, Knight. Ye've been touched by the Other, and it left scars. Scars I can no heal.”

“Scars of the soul, beyond the reach of mortals. The Other damages all it encounters, material and immaterial alike.” The Elder spoke, his voice reverberating around Blake as if they stood in a deep cave. “Which did the Gray One see?”

“Kindale, the city of golems to the south.” Granny Esmer answered for him.

“Golemhome, souleaters.” The Elder nodded. “A Dark day for a dark place. You have carried such burdens since that day.”

“We are not here for me,” Blake said. The pair talked as if he was not there with them, or unconscious. “We are here for Akisoromokevheje.”

“Akisoromokevheje?” The Elder tilted his head at the name. “What is Akisoromokevheje?”

“The buried demon, Talako. The Dream Eater.”

At the name, the Elder paled. His hand tightened around the staff, knuckles whitening, knotted tendons standing out until Blake thought they might burst with an ounce more pressure. “A fallen Servant. Shade of a Servant loose!”

“What is so concerning about a servant?”

The man’s eyes widened as he spoke, and spittle flew. “The Raven had Servants. The Servants heralded Her coming, and protected Her. There cannot be another Raven.”

“Who is the Raven?” Blake asked, the Elder’s fear having driven any concern the Knight could have had about the smiling shadow. From the First Person’s reaction, the Raven was a powerful entity with a Dark reputation.

“The Raven is She Who Crows the Darkness and Swallows the Moon. The Raven is Other. Beyond the understanding of Men, and All.”

“Your words tell me nothing. Much is beyond understanding until suddenly it is understood.”

“Ye can no understand this, Knight.” The Granny Woman surprised him when she spoke.

“You would be surprised,” Blake said. “Try me.”

“I can no. The Raven is an entity Outside of our reality, one who defies description. What can be told is what happened when It came here.”

“The Raven came here?” Blake asked.

“Not the Raven, not in full. Her Servants, with part of Her. This glade, this scar.” The First Person gestured at the area around them. “The mountain uprooted when She came from the sky. Not the Whole of Her, the mountains could not have borne the weight of Her. A small part of Her Being.”

“Are you saying this mountain range is from an impact crater? That seems unlikely.”

“Ye’ve felt the land ‘round here, I know ye have. Ye can no tell me ye donna feel what It left behind. An' that were the least o’ Her power.”

Talako nodded with Granny Esmer’s words. “Long ago, Talako’s people worshipped the Raven. She granted great power. The Hoppaval ruled the lands from the great water to where the sun sets beyond the mountains.”

“The Raven gifted your people power?” Blake asked. “What sort? Martial strength, magic, greater crops?”

“Great power. Desolation, unbeing, fear. Before the Hoppaval, none could stand. For the power, She claimed great tribute. There was war, and the Hoppaval who worshipped Her, and Her Servants, were slain. Their mortal bodies. The spirits lived on, corrupting the land, haunting the living. But the spirits must be cleansed before they go through the veil.”

The black lines in the ground pulsed as the Elder spoke, drawing Blake’s attention. Pulled from the bodies of ancient demon worshippers, or worse, and sent to a place unknown. “This—this whole valley is a graveyard for the Raven’s people? And you buried your sister here? What an incredibly poor decision.”

“It woulda no been an issue if ye Federation mages had no opened the Gate! This is a cleansing land, an’ woulda pulled the demon taint from her soul. A late soul is better than a demon tainted soul.”

Blake blinked as he processed what had happened. In her drive to absolve her sister of her sins, the Granny Woman had buried her body, already corrupted with the essence of Below, in the largest concentration of Other on the planet. Second now, after the plain where Kindale once stood.

From the blackened hole where Akisoromokevheje had been buried, the demonic taint had not been cleansed during her time in the ground. Rather, taint had gathered the Other from the barrows, absorbing it. Given more time, perhaps the whole amalgamation would have been pulled from the body and cleansed, but when the Gate opened, it was a spark in a powder keg.

“So we are dealing with a Servant of the Raven, or the Eye,” Blake said. The Elder shook his head, rattling the bone necklaces.

“Not a full Servant. A Servant breaks the Earth beneath their feet, twists Nature by their presence. The Knight would not have survived meeting a Servant. He does not have the skill. A shade only.”

“I am of the Blood of Yeshas. I have survived worse.” Several of Blake’s scars twinged, scars too deep for his God-given healing to erase completely.

“Not the Servants, ye have no.”

“The Servants are thousands of years dead. How would you know? I have defeated demigods, and these Servants sound as those.”

Talako scoffed. “Servants are as gods, Knight. The Raven is an Old God, one whom gods fear.”

“Yeshas would not allow something as you say to survive in the World. He is the Protector of Mankind.”

“He might be your Protector, Knight, but Talako’s people have lived under the shelter of different gods.” The Elder shook his carved staff at Blake, drawing his eyes to the deep carved symbols. Sigils of the Hoppaval gods?

“And how has that gone for you?” Blake knew he should not have said it when the words came from his mouth but there was no taking them back.

“Talako’s people have dwindled. Talako’s people were driven from their homelands, from their ancestral graves, from their way of life. Talako’s people were merciful, Gray One.”

“Merciful? Your people were the ones who needed mercy.”

“The invaders came, stole our lands, our food, our lives. They marched under the name of Yeshas, or Mithus, or Odun. Hundreds died, thousands. Treaty after treaty made, giving more and more of ourselves to the invaders. Every treaty promised to be the end, to keep the People safe. And the treaty broken, People murdered, land stolen. Children enslaved, sacrificed for golems to tend crops.

“And for all this, Talako’s people were merciful. For the Raven sat on the Other side, ready for one ritual, one Call to draw Her attention back to this world.” The Elder’s eyes blazed, his gaze boring into Blake. He tapped his carved staff against the ground with each word, dust rising with each successive strike. “The mountains still breathe. The People were Merciful.”

“And this is what we face in Akisoromokevheje?” Blake asked. “The end of the world?”

“Not the world. Akis is but a shadow of a Servant. She threatens the mountains, not the plains. What she is does not know what it can be from one moment to the next,” the Elder said.

“Do no mean she will no learn. The demon must be slain afore she acomes herself.” Granny Esmer shifted her black staff in her grip, positioning it for a better strike. “Right now, there is a human, demon, Servant, an' Other sacrifices fightin' fer one body. One wins, an' learns from the remnants.”

“Or they could work together.” Too often Blake encountered subjects of the Dark joined together under the common cause of ending human life.

“Impossible.” Talako shook his head, grayed braids sliding from his shoulders. “They are too unalike.”

“Yet we have a descendant of Yeshas, a demon worshipper, and a pagan witch working together. Not impossible,” Blake said.

“Our cooperation is in opposition to the abomination amalgamation,” Granny Esmer argued.

“Call her demon, it is less of a mouthful,” Blake said.

“Speak words louder, Gray One, Talako cannot understand. The Servant will win out. It will come for this place. Talako is strong, but Talako cannot defeat a Servant. Slay her while she is still many, end this threat.”

“Why are you afraid of the Servants? The Other is powerful enough, but surely the Servants do not exist in great enough power to pose a threat to the guardian of this place? How did your people defeat them before?”

“The Servant knows the Name of the Raven.” The Elder’s left eye twitched madly as he spoke, lid flickering faster than Blake could follow over the cloudy surface. “Great tragedy only could bring Servants to ground.”

“The name of the Raven? Can it be used to summon the Raven here?” If the Raven could be summoned, the world would not survive.

“The Name o' the Raven, Knight, carries with it great power, by the utterance alone,” The Granny Woman growled from her seat by the fire. “I heard it once, an' would not do so again. The experience is no… pleasant, an' the Servants can Speak with tenfold force.”

“Speaking its name is so wrong? Knowledge of a Name gives power, not danger.”

Granny Esmer snorted. “The Names o' Old Ones do no give ye power. All the Name does is tell ‘em where ye are.”

“Talako knows this Name, Gray One. Wise One, it would be best if you departed for the time.”

The Granny Woman walked away while the Elder was still speaking. Talako watched her go until she vanished around one of the larger barrows. Blake watched in bemusement and refrained from speaking until the Elder turned back to him.

“What could—”

The Elder opened his mouth and Spoke. One word, or ten, Blake could not distinguish. The noise was beyond mortal means, impossibly high, impossibly deep. The air burned as the Elder Spoke, vibrating before Blake’s eyes. The noise was a physical force, crashing into Blake, pushing him back. The pressure tightened around his chest, until his ribs creaked. Unearthly colors sounded in his ears, and he smelled the feeling of rusted iron scoured by fingernails. The air shook and the ground rippled, on the verge of unmaking. The noise went on and on, consuming all Blake was, and would be. It swelled in his awareness, until it was as big as the sky.

The Name ended, and the world was right again.

Blake staggered at the return to normalcy, feet unsteady beneath him. He was not sure how they worked. Blood splattered against the ground and it took Blake several moments to realize it was not his. The Elder coughed and rubbed his throat, skin pale and lips crimson.

“The Name, Spoken by Its Servants,” Talako said between bloody gasps, “rends the fabric of this reality, by nature of its unreality. Talako cannot Speak its full power, he is but a mortal. The Servants, they are both mortal and Other, some of both and much of neither. The Name is Spoken in full glory by Servants, and must not be allowed.”

Blake could do nothing but nod in agreement. The Servant could not be allowed to survive, or regain its old ability. The Iron Order in all its might would be hard pressed to end a threat on such a scale as the Elder described without great cost, or ruination.

“Ye done with yer sky speak? Once were enough fer me.” The Granny Woman came out from behind the barrow, hands held to her ears.

“Talako will not Speak again,” Talako said. “Too many namings draw Her eyes.”

“I could not stand to hear it again,” Blake said. He worked his jaw side to side and rubbed his ears.

“Once were enough fer me,” Granny Esmer growled. “Something like that can no exist in the world. Yet it do.”

“Is this why we came here?” Blake snapped. A surge of irritation filled him, one he could not identify the source of. “To hear an unhearable name and find out your sister is not your sister, but a monstrous fusion of every evil these mountains collected for millenia using her memories to pilot itself?”

“Came fer answers. Fer yer black apparition.”

“You do know of it!” Blake shouted. It had not been his imagination, she had known when he asked about it.

“The smiling shadow is not real,” Talako said. "Part of your mind. Kalona Ayeliski, the Raven Mockers. One seen by those who have seen the unseeable.”

“That does not even make sense.”

"It is so, Knight. Those who've been unlucky enough to confront the Other are haunted by the creature. Ye’ve got it worse than most.”

Blake rubbed his temples before speaking. “So if this has happened before, the shadow can be dealt with. How do I get rid of the shadow?”

“Ye can no.” Granny Esmer shrugged in apology.

“Then why did we waste time coming here?” Blake repeated. “You could have told me what your sister had become before we came here, and told me the shadow man was all in my head.”

“Would ye have believed what I said?”

“I have seen a city ground to dust in a single moment. There is little I would not believe possible with evidence.” The scarcest evidence, after Kindale. “I asked you to tell me everything.”

“Wise Woman, she was forbidden from mentioning this place. Yet she has brought the Gray One here, around her Oaths. Clever.” Talako’s eyes flashed as he watched Granny Esmer. There was anger there. Blake was not meant to have come to this place.

“So you could not have told me about the nature of your sister without bringing me here.” Oaths, true Oaths, were binding beyond the mere promises of words. Depending on the Oath she has sworn, Granny Esmer would have died if she told Blake anything. The revelation gave him insight to her actions, but it did little to dampen his anger.

“An' yer shadow friend.”

“Fine,” Blake snapped. “What can I do about the shadow in my mind? You said I cannot get rid of it, but not why, or if there were other remedies.”

“Those what’ve met the Other live with it fer the rest o' their lives. Must be buried here, when they die. Lest the Other seep into this world through the rot.”

“Morbid. Does not work all the time, does it? And I can think of one case where it did a lot more harm than good to be buried here.”

“And yet you will still be returned here after you breathe your last.” The Elder stared at Blake, cloudy eye unblinking.

“And if my family has something to say?” Blake said, waving his arm. “Or I decide to become immortal?”

“You do not have family who would care.” A savage insult, delivered without inflection.

“What the fuck do you know, old man? I do not see any family of yours around here. Does that mean you do not have family either?”

“Talako’s family died fifty years ago, and Talako let them. It was for the good of all.”

“Bullshit.”

“Wisdom cannot be shared. Knowledge can be, and Talako’s family had knowledge beyond thought. But no wisdom. They would have shared the Name. And the Other. With the passing of family, Talako could ensure the world lived.”

The Knight blinked. The old Native was… admitting to murdering his family?

“When you say family, you mean..?”

Talako nodded. “Those who guarded the grove alongside Talako. The Other whispers to all, and all bow in time. Talako is the last, and Talako is content. Until the Servant returned. Cruel fate, to allow the last to the guardians to crumble as the Enemy achieves strength again.”

“Ye’re no alone, Talako. We fight a common enemy.”

“How Talako wishes Gray One’s words were true.”

“Akis and the Servant are one, but the death of Akis does not bring the death of the Servant.”

“You are referring to the death of the body and the death of the spirit, the metaphysical?” While body death was generally accepted as the end of a threat, Blake had encountered many that persisted after the fleshy form expired. Some of the worst threats he had faced.

“Yes. The Servant lives outside the flesh of Akis, and must be slain.”

“Ye got an idea o’ how? Got special Native rituals or dances we need to perform?”

“It will not be a matter of ritual. A matter of will. Determination. The Other must be removed from the land.”

The sun shone from the rim of the bowl, striking Blake in the eyes. Squinting against the brightness, he turned to the Granny Woman who held a hand against the light.

“It was before noon when we came into this valley. How is it approaching evening already?”

“Time flows different when the Other comes to play. Only the People be in this place once dark falls. You must leave now.”

“But-”

“He’s serious, Knight. There is no coming back after dark here.”

“Surely there is something to be done? Wardings or guardfires?”

“There is no danger to the body, Gray One. If the visit is extended beyond the sun, there will be no leaving the valley. The Knights will lose one, the valley will gain a guardian.”

“A Curse of Habitation,” Blake said, realizing what the Elder was speaking of. “There are ways to break those, to allow freedom.”

“No in time to stop Akis, an' no when the Raven is involved. Now let’s go. I do no fancy bein' a permanent fixture around this campfire. Yer soldier friend will need someone to tell him what to do.”

Talako nodded. “Leave this place, bring the End to the Servant.”

The pair climbed back up the side of the valley, up the deep stairs carved into the stone walls. As they did, the Elder called after them.

“Do not return, Gray One. The Way will be barred to you. Wise One, please speak to Talako once the Servant is dealt with. If you can.”

“What heartwarming words of encouragement,” Blake said.

“Ye mumbling again, Knight?”

When they passed over the last stair and stepped once more into the domain of the ancient mountains, the sun had fallen to the tips of the trees at the base of the mountains. There should have been more than enough time to speak more, get more answers to questions Blake had not thought to ask.

He turned back, to get a last glance at the valley of the forgotten dead, and found the crater to be gone. The entire colossal divot was replaced by continuous stony ground, dotted with trees and shrubs.

It was not an illusion. The ground, the trees, it was all real to Blake’s senses. But under it, behind it, there was another, fainter presence. A Presence like he had last felt on the fields at Kindale. He shook his head. Even if there were many unknown questions and knowable answers buried down there with the Elder, Blake never wanted to sense anything like that Presence again. The demon Akisoromokevheje would be dealt with, and Blake would leave town, never to return.