Chapter Five

Zyran had been walking for quite some time. Two days, approximately. He was unused to such long periods of activity. In the Hollow, he never slept, exactly, but he did have time to simply lie down and look around at the mist, regenerate dead cells, and generally relax. His excursions outside of the Hollow were never more than two or three days. He had now been here for four, and he was feeling the effects. At least he had finally reached the mountains.

Not that the mountains were much of an improvement over the sand dunes. Now instead of dragging his feet through hot sand, he had to climb over hot rocks. The rocks did not pull at his feet, but they burned even more fiercely than the sand. It was the sort of pain that he would hardly have noticed with the Song, but now it always seemed to be at the forefront of his mind. His hands and feet had accrued dozens of scrapes and cuts, and they had a tendency to get covered with sand and sting. The back of his neck and head had become sore, probably an adverse reaction to the stunningly hot sun. He was glad the tenzen had not taken his tunic and lower robe. He had had no further problems with the creatures, but they had left their marks—his arm throbbed painfully with every move, and he still flinched every time he saw a lizard darting across the rocks.

It was mid-afternoon. The sun was nearing its greatest heat. But Zyran could see something at the top of the ridge. A bank of cloud, its tendrils touching the sharp peaks, but not crossing. It would seem that the mountains stopped moisture from coming south into the desert. Perhaps conditions would be better on the other side.

He found a comparatively easy section of mountain, clambering up apparently stable boulders. He was hoisting himself up one, the staff and bag clunking awkwardly against him and the rock, when something prodded him in the shoulder.

Zyran spun in surprise, lost his footing, and fell. He landed wedged between two boulders, the staff digging painfully into his back, the bag jammed up against his ribs. A short, strangely-shaped figure peered down at him from the top of one of the boulders. It was completely muffled in layer upon layer of tattered clothes and bits of fabric.

“Who’re you?” It could have been either a male or female. “You’re taking the hard way up, ain’t you?”

Zyran struggled to free himself. He managed to get his feet on a rock and force himself upright, but when he leapt upward to grab the edge of the unoccupied boulder, something yanked him back hard. He hit his head on something as he fell back into the same spot, though with his bag now under him. He looked up and saw the staff stuck securely between the boulders. The strap had pulled him back, and he had hit his head on the staff itself.

The muffled figure chuckled in a snuffly sort of voice. “Not none too graceful, are you?” It leapt down beside Zyran with surprising elegance. “No matter.” It removed Zyran’s staff from its position easily. “Here.” It handed the staff to him.

Zyran took it cautiously. “Who are you?”

“I asked you first,” the figure said, offended.

“I am Zyran.”

The figure looked him over. “Right,” it said. “You’re a bit of an oddball. I’m Noom. You’re standing on my doormat.”

Zyran looked down. He saw a rock.

“To your left there.”

He looked over and blinked. There seemed to be a way underneath the boulder, a descent into darkness.

Noom squeezed past him. “Come on in. You can get out of the sun. Get something to drink.” It dropped to its stomach and crawled into the hole, down into the mountain. Zyran hesitated, but followed. It was a tight squeeze, with total darkness in front of him. The staff and bag made movement difficult, but Zyran forced himself through.

After perhaps ten feet of crawling downward, he suddenly emerged into an open space. He got to his feet unsteadily. The top of his head hit rock when he tried to stand up, so he remained in an uncomfortable half-crouch.

The darkness was affecting him. He had been in the dark before, of course, but he had always had the Song to tell him what his eyes could not see. Now there was nothing. He slowly extended a hand, trying to gauge how large the space was.

Then a light flared into existence. Noom had lit a surprisingly bright wooden lantern, illuminating a stone tunnel, perhaps two paces wide, leading further down. It had small stairs carved into its floor. Noom could stand comfortably, but Zyran needed to crouch.

“You blind?” Noom asked. “You got them empty eyes.”

“No, I’m not.”

“No, huh?” Noom began to make its way down the stairs. Zyran followed carefully. “Well, you’re a funny looking guy, that’s for sure. Where you from?”

Zyran hesitated. He was going to have to invent a history at some point. “A very long way from here.”

“Oh, yeah? Never been much for traveling myself. Leastways not above ground. Tunnels, friend, that’s the way to go. Get you anywhere you want.”

“Tunnels?” Zyran said in surprise. “What sort of tunnels?”

“The tunnel kind,” Noom said irritably. “We’ll get there.” It shuffled down the stairs until its light hit a small wooden door, neatly set into the side of the tunnel with a triangle-patterned doorframe carved into the stone around it. The stairs continued further down. “There we go.” It held the door open for Zyran. “Go on in, make yourself at home.”

Zyran bent nearly double to fit through the door. He emerged into a room, surprisingly well-lit by candle sconces, that was just large enough for him to be able to slide the staff off and sit on the floor without knocking anything over. The room was full of towers of books and scrolls, in addition to more interesting, possibly dangerous objects than Zyran could take in. Stacks of glassware teetered dangerously when Noom slammed the door.

Noom waded through the mess, somehow avoiding knocking anything over, and busily searched through a cabinet in a corner, making an alarming quantity of banging and clattering sounds as it shoved boxes and dishes aside. “Take tea?”

“I cannot,” Zyran said.

Noom turned to look at him, and Zyran saw the glimmer of eyes beneath its wrappings for the first time. “Oh, I see. That’s real, then? You’re a proper Servant?”

Zyran hesitated. He didn’t know who this mortal was, or even what species. But if it knew of Death... surely it could help him? “Yes. I have served Death for hundreds of years.”

“Oooh!” Noom looked positively delighted. It pulled a three-legged stool up to Zyran and dropped on it, leaning so far forward Zyran was surprised it didn’t topple over. “Big shot, then? Excellent! What’re you up to, then? Big things? Scary things? Dead things?”

“I must get north. I am to follow a sakiru.”

“Aw, that’s no way to talk to Noom. You can tell me all about your big secret mission. I won’t tell nobody. Go on, spill it. Maybe I can help you get where you’re going, hmmm?”

“What are these tunnels you mentioned?” Zyran asked, hoping to change the subject without revealing that he wasn’t on as good terms with Death as he might have liked to be.

“Bah,” Noom grumbled. “Keep your secrets. Getting north, huh? Well, I can help you there. That’s what tunnels are for. I’ll need payment though.”

“Payment?” Zyran said, his heart sinking. “I have nothing to give.”

“Sure you do,” Noom said. “Got blood, don’t you?”

“What do you want blood for?”

“Oh, all sorts of things. Blood’s cheaper than water out here. Don’t even think about trying to get milk. All the Rakkinen will sell you is iveri milk, tasteless gunk. They keep all that lovely goat milk to themselves. Greedy buggers.”

“Rakkinen?”

“Ohhh. That’s right, you’re new here. How about I give you a crash course in Rune, hmm? Maybe you give me a little extra blood?”

“Perhaps,” Zyran said carefully.

“Bah. You’re a cheapskate, too. Oh well.” Noom yanked a scroll out from the bottom of a pile, which somehow didn’t collapse. It unfurled the scroll, which turned out to be a map. “We’re here,” it said, pointing to a mountain range near the center of the map. “The northern border of Rakken. Desert country. The people are mostly nomads, roam around looking for water. Quite sociable if you hit them in the right mood. North of us is Eldden. It’s a nice enough place. Not wild enough for my taste. Too many dumb farmers. Then Alddra to the east, that’s a bunch of crazies, I’d steer clear of there. They’d probably try to burn you at the stake or something. North on that side is Skel’ing. Don’t mind them. Bunch of tribal snowmen, never get up to much of anything apart from interbreeding with Fey. North on the other side is Unai. Now that’s an interesting place. Full of forests and mountains and secrets.”

“What about there?” Zyran asked, pointing to a peninsula on the west side.

“Oh, that’s Cuisienne,” Noom said dismissively. “Fishermen all. Poor as dirt. Ignore them. That lot really never do anything interesting. They all swear their lives to Eldden in return for wood for their boats. Stupid system. They’ll be the first to go.”

“What do you mean?”

“Bad stuff coming,” Noom said, unrolling the map to show the seas on either side of the continent. It pointed to the west, where a monstrous beast had been crudely sketched in. “That. Big army, reckon. Big monster? Big something. Already here, I think. It’s probably burning away the coast so it can hit Eldden. Bye-bye, fishermen.”

“How do you know this?”

Noom tossed the scroll atop another pile. “Oh, I know. Know all sorts of things. Always good to expand your mind, eh? The tunnels help. People bring word.”

“Yes, what are these tunnels?”

“Ah. Follow me,” Noom said. It hopped to its feet, picked up the lantern, and opened the door. Zyran extracted himself from its home carefully. Together they went further underground, Noom trotting along easily while Zyran picked his way down the steps.

After what seemed like ages they stopped at a landing. The path onward was apparently blocked by a large boulder. Noom placed a gloved hand on it and murmured something. The rock split into two doors and swung inward, revealing more darkness. As Zyran peered in, a cold breath of air seemed to rise out of the depths and brush his skin.

“Those are the tunnels,” Noom said cheerfully. “They’ll take you all sorts of places. Older than me, older than you, older than the oldest tree in Rune. Built by my ancestors way back in the day when they were driven underground.”

“Driven underground?” Zyran asked curiously.

“Oh sure. Well, we drove ourselves underground, in point of fact, but we weren’t exactly keen on the prospect. Although we already spent a lot of time underground anyway. Look, humans’ll tell you they’re the first and only proper folk in Rune. The Fey’ll tell you the truth: they were here first, and they were getting along pretty well until the humans showed up and fought them into the forests. Now they each like to pretend the other don’t exist. But anyway, we were here before the Fey. When we saw them come, building their homes in trees and talking to each other, we knew our time was up. So we went down, down into our villages into the earth, and kept on doing service to the deep-down gods.”

Zyran shelved the last part as religious prattle and moved on. “So there are still Fey here?”

“Oh yeah. You’ll have a time finding them, though. Rune’s pretty much human now. I hear it’s different across the seas, but here the Fey are all way up north, in Skel’ing’s snowfields and Unai’s mountain forests.”

“So can I take these tunnels anywhere?”

“Not without help,” Noom said, suddenly businesslike. “This is where you pay me. Then I can maybe give you a map, some directions.”

“And you’re sure you want blood?” Zyran said dubiously.

“Well, yeah. Unless you got some goat milk on you?”

Zyran was forced to admit that he did not in fact have any goat milk.

“Right then. Come on in here to my laboratory.” Noom shuffled off into the darkness. Zyran followed the light. They walked for a few minutes, making a number of turns, before Noom opened a door in the side of the tunnel.

Noom’s laboratory was filled to the low ceiling with racks and racks of tubes, distilling mechanisms, glassware Zyran couldn’t identify, skulls, and a few bunches of dried flowers. The glass shone brightly in the light of Noom’s lantern. In the center of the large room was a solidly built wooden chair, bolted to the floor, that looked as though people were frequently strapped into it. It had dark reddish-brown stains on it.

“So,” Zyran said, deciding to act as though he saw this sort of thing all the time and was not remotely concerned, “what are the flowers for?”

“Oh, just to brighten the place up,” Noom said. “I think a dash of color is key in any room.” Zyran was reminded strongly of Death, who often brought fairies into the Hollow for the same purpose. “Have a seat.” It saw Zyran hesitate. “Oh, don’t worry. The straps are just for the uncooperative ones.”

Zyran set down the staff and bag and lowered himself cautiously into the chair, which, partly because it was his size rather than Noom’s, was actually quite comfortable. Noom busied itself at a workbench, gathering up various tubes and needles. Eventually it came over to Zyran and inserted a needle of intimidating scale into his arm. “This’ll just take a bit,” it said as it fixed a tube to the needle and put the end of the tube into a large bottle.

Zyran looked at the bottle skeptically as his blood began to drain into it. It was easily four times the volume of Death’s teakettle. “I am not certain I owe you that much...”

“Nonsense,” Noom said brightly. “Your sort’s immortal, after a fashion. You regenerate. I’m counting on at least three of these.”

“That will not be possible,” Zyran said firmly.

Noom looked up at him. “Is that how it’s going to be?” Before Zyran could react, it shouted a word. The chair’s straps and chains sprang to life, fastening themselves tightly. Zyran struggled, but found no give in any of the bindings. Noom whacked him over the head with a large metal spoon. “Stop that! You’ll pay your debt like a decent person!”

“But I’m not immortal!” Zyran said desperately, his head throbbing painfully.

“No?” Noom said in surprise. It peered at him through its wrappings, then poked him a few times, as if expecting to feel a difference. “Hmm. Oh well. I’ll just have to take what I can get, then. Any last words, rites, that kind of thing?”

“You cannot kill me! Death will be displeased!”

Noom sighed. “I wasn’t born yesterday. If you’re not immortal, then Death can’t care too much about you, no?” It eyed the bottle critically, then hit Zyran with the spoon again and adjusted the needle. The blood began to flow much more quickly. Zyran strained against the straps and chains. “Yes, exactly! Keep flexing your arm, it’ll go faster!” Noom turned back to the workbench.

Something shifted in the corner of Zyran’s eye. He saw the flap of his bag opening, and then the sakiru was at his wrist. He felt a strap come loose and yanked, freeing one hand. The sakiru fled back to the bag. Soon he had his other hand free as well, and then his legs. Noom turned around just as he got the last strap undone. There was an earsplitting shriek, but Zyran was already out of the chair, pulling out the needle and scrabbling for his staff and bag. Noom got between him and the door. It yanked the end of the wrappings on its head, and they came off.

Zyran froze. He had assumed Noom was more or less humanoid, probably disfigured by burn scars or something similar. But as the wrappings peeled away, they revealed a twisted green face with an inhumanly wide mouth, filled with needle-fangs like the tenzen. Wide cross-pupil eyes shone gold, bulging with fury. A tail swished out from underneath its shroud. “You owe me!” it snarled.

Zyran did the first thing he could think of without the Song. He grabbed one of the racks and flung it down on Noom. Its contents spilled out onto the creature, extinguishing its lantern. Total darkness fell. Zyran heard a horrible sizzling sound and smelled burned flesh.

“NOOOOO!” came the scream. “NOOOOOO! WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!”

Zyran backed up and took a running jump. He couldn’t see, but he knew how far away Noom had been from the door. He landed in a puddle of something that burned his feet horribly. He ran out the door and immediately hit a wall in the pitch blackness. Something grabbed his arm, burning his skin, and he jerked it away. He ran left. He was pretty sure the last turn had been a right. Why hadn’t he memorized the path? That was standard procedure, and he had already forgotten it.

He could hear Noom wailing behind him, getting closer and closer. “MY EYES! YOU TOOK MY EYES, YOOOOUUU SON OF A WHORE! I’LL TAKE YOURS! DO YOU HEAR ME?! I’LL! TAKE! YOURS!”

Zyran ran. He made turns at random, feeling his way along walls as he ran. His feet felt like they were on fire. He could still smell burning flesh, but he didn’t know whether it was himself or Noom. The tunnels echoed strangely, warping sound so that Noom’s howls and shuffling footsteps always seemed to be coming from right in front of him. He knew that logically, Noom couldn’t possibly be anywhere but behind him at an unknown distance, but it took a great deal of willpower to force himself to go toward the voice.

He ran for what seemed like forever, falling down stairs, hitting his head on lower parts of the ceiling, taking turns indiscriminately for the most part, unless he felt that he had turned too much and was running back the way he came. Then he would change directions. Noom grabbed him twice more, both times coming from an unexpected direction, both times leaving handprints that burned into Zyran’s skin, both times left shrieking in the dark from a panicked punch or kick.

Then he tripped over a stair that seemed to only go up. He jumped back to his feet and ran up it. Yes! He kept climbing and climbing, scraping his feet on broken steps. He could hear Noom panting and snarling somewhere behind him. Then he ran straight into a wall at top speed. He rolled down a few stairs before he could stop himself and rushed back up them, running his hands up and down the rock. Surely the stair wouldn’t simply stop, there had to be a way out of it.

He felt Noom’s strong hands snatch him again. This time the creature caught his ankle and pulled a leg out from under him. Zyran ended up flat on his back, knocking the wind out of him. Something heavy climbed on top of him. He could feel something inches away from his face, something that dripped liquid that burned.

“Yes,” Noom hissed. “Your eyes, now!” Then there were fingers gouging into his face, thumbs looking for his eye sockets. Zyran struck out wildly. His knee hit something soft, but his hand hit something hard that shattered. Sharp bits of something flew at him, accompanied by a splash of liquid. Noom shrieked, and the hands let go. Zyran shoved hard, pushing Noom back down the stairs.

He lunged for the wall again and found a hole, smaller than the one they had come in through. He squeezed into it, pushing the bag in front of him, and tried to ignore the fact that the tunnel was so tight that he could hardly breathe. He felt Noom grab his left ankle and kicked out, bashing his knee painfully on the wall. The hand let go, but then dozens of teeth pierced him instead, and he cried out in pain. He forced himself further through the hole, his hands trapped at his sides by the unforgiving rock. He felt hands clawing up his leg and kicked again, but couldn’t dislodge the teeth. He used his feet to push himself through the hole, inch by inch, Noom’s fingernails carving trenches in his skin, the hole getting steadily narrower.

The end of the staff, several inches in front of him and to his left, hit something. At the same time he got stuck, his shoulders lodged in the tunnel. No! He tried to turn his hands so that he could get a grip on the side of the tunnel and push harder, but the passage was too tight.

The teeth left his ankle and snapped shut on his calf.

He jammed his toes into the rock and heaved forward again. It did nothing. No no no! He heard leather scraping, and then something long and sharp plunged into his right leg. Zyran screamed then. It hurts it hurts it hurts.

He heaved again. Again, nothing. He didn’t know whether it was the staff that was holding him back or if he was simply too big for the passage. The knife left his leg and stabbed back down, and he screamed again. He gave one last desperate heave, his legs crying out in protest, the rough rock of the tunnel’s walls relieving him of a few layers of skin.

A line of light streamed into the hole. The rock blocking the exit had shifted just a little. Zyran kept pushing through the agony, and then suddenly his head was in open air and his feet were scrabbling behind him, and then his shoulders were out.

There was a sudden burst of pain from his leg, stopping him in his tracks. He pulled again, and the knife cut deeper. The knife was caught between the top and bottom walls of the passage. “No!”

He struggled furiously, but every forward movement brought the knife further through the tissue of his calf. It felt like he was going to cut his leg in half. The teeth and fingernails in his other leg were working their way up. He had no choice.

He shoved himself forward. The knife sliced through his leg in one quick stroke. He howled in pain, but his hands were free. He grabbed the outside of the hole and pushed himself all the way out. He landed on stone.

He turned and saw Noom still clamped on his leg, but the creature was now free to release its grip and lunge at Zyran’s face. Zyran rolled out of the way and threw himself back against the stone. Then Noom was on him, clawing madly.

Zyran flung one hand up in front of his face and, with the other, grabbed the first thing he touched and smashed it into the side of Noom’s head. It turned out to be a rock. Noom wailed and fell back, clutching its head. Zyran pitched himself forward and fell on Noom. He brought the rock down over and over and over again.

He didn’t know how long he kept hitting the lifeless body. He stopped when he couldn’t do it anymore. He dropped the rock and collapsed on his back, chest heaving, dripping with blood. He couldn’t move for a long time. He lay there, staring up at a pale gray sky. After a few minutes it dawned on him that it was fog, and that the air drifting past him was cool and wet. For the moment he couldn’t bother thinking about what that meant. He didn’t want to move again, ever. He hurt all over. His legs were screaming at him. He was so tired. So tired. He laid still, watching the fog drift, not seeing.

After a long time he forced himself to think past the pain and exhaustion. He had to be on the northern side of the mountains. Which meant that he was now in a country called Eldden. He wished he had taken Noom’s map. His leg was hurting worse every minute, and eventually he had to either start screaming or have a look at it. He slowly pushed himself to a sitting position and looked.

It wasn’t as bad as he had thought. The knife had cut at an angle. It had entered near his knee on the outside of his right leg, and when he had pulled free, it had cut neatly through his calf, leaving the bone untouched. He was going to have a great deal of difficulty walking. Thankfully, it had not severed his fibular artery, so it wasn’t bleeding excessively.

He tore the remaining sleeve from his tunic and wrapped it tightly around his leg. When he gave the knot one final jerk to ensure it would keep the appropriate amount of pressure, he nearly screamed. He was tired of pain. There had been altogether too much of it for the last few days, and it didn’t look like it was going to let up anytime soon.

The rest of him was a mess as well. His entire body was covered in scrapes from the tight passage. He found six hand-sized marks where several layers of skin had been burned away. He supposed the rest had put holes in his tunic instead, which had largely been reduced to tatters. There were deep furrows all up and down his legs from Noom’s fingernails. His feet were burned, scraped, and bleeding. Apart from the more devastating slice in his right leg, there was another stab wound, right next to the other. He had been able to bind both with one bandage. His other leg was covered in bite marks. He touched them experimentally and found that many of the little holes had teeth in them. He shuddered but gripped one and pulled. It tore loose painfully and with a spurt of blood. He looked closely at it and saw that the back edge was serrated.

Zyran gazed at the tooth for a while. He thought he ought to be getting furious about now. Everything that could possibly go wrong seemed to be going wrong. Everything hurt horribly and didn’t let up. All the people he met died. He didn’t know where he was and he didn’t have any way to find out. The mossy rocks he was sitting on were uncomfortable. There were teeth in his leg. There were deep, debilitating cuts in the other one. His arm, which had scabbed up to some degree during his desert walk, had torn open again in the struggle and had soaked its bandage afresh.

He couldn’t get angry. He couldn’t even really bring himself to care. The only thing he felt he could bother with immediately was shifting so that the rocks would dig into him a little less. He tried and found that the new position was even more uncomfortable. He removed the staff to see if that helped any. It didn’t. He looked over at the bag, which sat by the tunnel exit. It was motionless. He glanced around, and suddenly realized that he hadn’t bothered to look at his surroundings yet.

Zyran was on a rocky mountainside, punctuated by brambles and occasional clumps of green. It was still foggy. He could dimly see what looked like a patch of greenery down the slope through the fog. He weighed the effort involved for a minute, then decided that he could manage that. He didn’t bother trying to get up. It would hurt badly, it would work the teeth deeper into his leg, it would put additional stress on his torn muscles, and he probably wouldn’t be able to walk more than a few steps anyway.

So he reached out with the staff, hooked the bag on the end, and dragged himself and his possessions some thirty feet down the mountainside.

It hurt. He supposed he shouldn’t even bother with being surprised. Being mortal seemed largely to entail living in a world of constant pain. He scraped himself on rocks, thorny vines pierced his skin, and sometimes he forgot that his legs didn’t really work and he would try to use them to move forward. Then he would have to go still, make undignified noises, and wait for the pain to recede enough to keep moving.

But he eventually reached the patch of greenery, which turned out to be grass. Soft grass. And for a moment, Zyran couldn’t think of anything he wanted more. He went limp and didn’t move for about fifteen hours.

Consciousness came slowly. Zyran noted that he had been much less aware during the night than he usually was while resting. Perhaps his mortality was now edging in a need for sleep, in addition to all the other weaknesses. Wouldn’t that be wonderful. He was still in a substantial amount of pain, but a night’s rest seemed to give him a bit of an edge over it. It wasn’t as crippling as it had been.

He slowly lifted his head off of the grass to look around. It looked to be two or three hours after dawn. It wasn’t as foggy as it had been the previous day. He could see down the mountainside a ways. There were trees, he could see that now. Zyran had always had a fondness for trees. There were a few of the big catlike creatures from the desert browsing around, nibbling grass. They looked different. Woollier, stockier.

And there was a child standing in front of him.

The child was the same strange sort of animal that the cultists had been—probably the humans that Noom had mentioned, Zyran realized. Smallish. Waist height. Zyran had no idea what age that corresponded to. She—Zyran thought; children were even harder to tell apart than adults—was leaning on a branch, gazing slackjawed at him. A very young creature was standing next to her. As Zyran watched, it moved forward, snuffled Zyran cautiously, apparently decided it was safe, and began to eat the grass.

“You look funny,” the child said.

Zyran nodded slowly. He pulled himself painfully to a sitting position.

“Also you’re bleeding.”

Zyran nodded again.

“D’you need help?”

Zyran glanced at himself. He looked like a corpse. He felt like a corpse. “I think some help would be appreciated,” he croaked.

The child offered him a hand. Zyran took it, and the child pulled. Zyran made it to one leg. The stabbed leg was proving largely useless. The teeth in the other leg, which had been comparatively quiet, now dug in with a vengeance. Zyran teetered. The child grabbed him around the waist in an effort to steady him. He grabbed his staff and leaned on it, which helped more.

The child lead him slowly down the mountainside. Very slowly. Zyran had to stop often to let the pain in his legs return to a manageable degree. But eventually they arrived at a tiny wooden house in a clearing. The child sat him down on a barrel near the door and ran inside. Zyran tried to recover from the exertion. Everything hurt. Again. He was sweating profusely, despite the cool morning.

Sweating? That was impossible. He ran a finger down his forearm and found beads of moisture clinging to it. Absurd. He didn’t even have sweat glands. He didn’t have time to consider this new development, unfortunately. The girl came out leading a plump woman, who was wielding a large, intimidating garden fork.

“What are you?” the woman inquired.

Zyran hesitated, unsure how to best answer that question.

“Are you a demon?” the woman asked more firmly.

“No!” Zyran said quickly. “No, I am not a demon. I am...” He scanned his memory, trying to come up with something he could theoretically pass as.

“If you don’t know what you are, you’re probably a demon,” the woman said, beginning to advance upon him, slowly but menacingly.

“No,” Zyran said vehemently. “I am not a demon.” Why couldn’t he think of anything? The closest thing he could come up with was Mondralian, but it wasn’t a good enough match that he could call himself one, or even a mutant.

“You’re not a very smart one, huh?” the woman said. “Demons should be able to lie better.”

Zyran gave up. “I am unsure exactly what your definition of demon is, but it is very possible that you might consider me one.” The woman pushed the girl behind her and raised the fork. Zyran held up his hands. “I can assure you that I am not here to hurt you, and I probably could not even if I had any desire to.” He gestured to his legs. “As you can see, I am injured. I have a very long way to travel, and any assistance you can offer would be greatly appreciated. I am not certain what I can offer you in return, but there must be something.”

The woman glared at him. “Are you a Fey of some kind?”

“I don’t think so, no.”

“How can you not know what you are?”

“Trade secret,” Zyran said irritably.

To his surprise, the woman turned and leaned her fork up against the wall of the house. “Demons can’t make jokes. That wasn’t very funny, but you’re not a demon.”

Zyran was wondering how that had somehow managed to pass as a joke when the woman hauled him up from the barrel and guided him into the house, easily taking nearly all of his weight. All he had to do was lean on her, hop along on his less-injured leg, and duck under the uneven doorframe.

The inside of the cabin was tiny, even judging by the outside. The walls appeared to be double logs. The winters here had to get very cold. Even now there was a small fire burning in a pit in the center of the room. The woman sat Zyran down on a stump next to it. “Stay,” she said firmly and headed outside. The little girl sat cross-legged on the dirt floor by the fire, gazing up at Zyran. “You got stories?” she asked.

“I suppose,” he said carefully.

“Tell,” she said stubbornly.

Just then the woman came back in, her dark hair tied at the top of her head, wearing a thick canvas apron over her tunic and pants. “Raf! Get back up the hill! The iveri aren’t being watched!” The girl leapt to her bare feet and dashed outside.

“Raf is a girl’s name?” Zyran said in surprise.

The woman gave him an odd look. “Raf is a boy.”

Zyran digested this. He had a lot to learn about telling humans apart. The woman seated herself on a stool facing him and lifted his left leg for examination. “Are these teeth?” she said incredulously. “What from?”

“Uncertain. It was a small humanoid that—“ He winced as the woman extracted one of the teeth from his leg with astonishing speed and neatness.

“It couldn’t have had many of these left when it got done with you.”

“I am... not sure. I largely destroyed its head when I killed it.”

She looked at him suspiciously. “Magic?”

“Ah, no. A rock.”

“Mmm.” Placated, she returned to pulling teeth out of his leg. “You’re going to owe us for this. We’re poor this close to Rakken, it’s rocky, not good for the crops. And the iveri are all coming down with something. Can’t afford to spend much time on anything that’s not work. And we can’t spare food, not with the baby coming.”

Baby? Oh. Most mammals bore reasonably well-developed live young, resulting in a long gestation period. She wasn’t overweight, she was pregnant. That made sense, now that he examined her face more closely. It was bony, the shadows of her cheekbones sharp.

She placed each fang in a wooden bowl as she pulled it out. “My husband will have a look at these later, find out what bit you, if it’s poisonous.”

“It bit me early yesterday evening,” Zyran ventured. “Any venom would most likely have acted by now.”

“Good,” she said, continuing to save the teeth. She shifted his much-abused robe out of the way of her work. “That thing’s not good for much now but burning. You need some pants.”

“No!” said Zyran, much more sharply than he intended. The thought of losing one of his precious few remaining connections to Death filled him with a sudden horror. “No,” he repeated more quietly, fingering the beads that closed the robe on the left side.

The woman looked at him with raised eyebrows for a moment before shrugging and returning to pulling teeth. “Okay. You’re going to be mocked for it, though.”

“Why?” Zyran said in surprise. He had always considered his robe a point of pride.

She looked up to him as if about to give him bad news. “It’s a whore’s skirt. What did you expect?”

“It is not a skirt,” Zyran said indignantly. “It is a robe.”

“It’s only closed properly on one side.”

“It is a noble and flattering cut.”

She snorted. “Legs like yours, you want to hide them, not stick them out for everyone to see.”

Zyran had to concede that his legs had in fact looked better, but still. His robe was a beautiful thing.

“Maybe wear pants underneath it?” the woman suggested.

Zyran still felt insulted, but he said, “I will consider it.” The things called iveri seemed to be a common mode of transportation, and if he ever had to ride one again, pants would indeed be more comfortable than his robe.

The woman removed the last tooth, put it in the bowl, and began mopping his leg up with a wet cloth. Then she dried it and wrapped it tightly in bandages that she took from a dusty box. She carefully unwrapped the blood-soaked cloth from his other leg with a look of disgust, exposing the wound beneath. “This,” she said slowly, “this was done with a knife or a sword?”

“A knife,” Zyran said.

She shook her head. “Dirty work.” She cleaned it with water and produced a large needle and thread. Zyran was wondering what she meant to sew when she pierced his leg with it. After the initial surprise and pain faded, he recognized her logic, but... was mortal medicine really so primitive? He wondered how many survived treatments like this.

The stitches hurt. It could be said that being stabbed had been much more painful, but this was a different kind of hurt. He had to hold still for it, let her hurt him. And it was coming on top of the constant pain of the injury itself. It was... unpleasant.

But eventually it was over. She ground up something green and wet in a corner and coated the stab wounds with it before wrapping that leg in bandages as well, covering all the scratches from Noom’s fingernails in addition to the more serious injuries. Zyran was surprised to discover that the green stuff seemed to leech out the heat and pain. Heat... Fascinating. He must have had a fever. It didn’t explain sweating when he didn’t have sweat glands, but that would have to come later. The woman had unwrapped his arm, taken one look, gone pale, and begun mixing something over the fire.

Zyran watched curiously. “What is that?”

“Water. Wine. Vinegar. Salt—we’re close to Rakken, so we can get it cheaply. Some herbs in there too.”

“That can’t be nutritious.”

She laughed, which struck Zyran as odd. “It’s not for eating. Your arm’s gone sour.”

Zyran looked at it. It did look inflamed. Infection had never been a concern for him, and he was uncertain how to deal with it. “What are you going to do?”

She looked at him oddly as she stirred the unpleasant mixture. “Well, it needs to be cleaned out.” She tapped the spoon dry on the rim of the pot and set it down, then pulled a knife from a rack and held it in the fire for a moment. Zyran watched with interest, realizing what she was going to do a moment before she did it.

He yelled in pain as she slit open the wound’s thin scab with the hot knife. Pus oozed out, and she soaked it up with a rag for a moment before beginning to scrape away all trace of scabbing, mopping up blood and pus as she went. “Quiet.” Zyran forced himself into silence.

“Better. You can scream in a minute. I’d offer you something to bite down on, but...”

You can scream in a minute... oh. No. No, that was a... well, the salt and alcohol would make the surrounding fluid hypertonic, which would result in excessive osmosis to cope with the increased mineral concentration, causing cell death, which meant that a sizable number of bacteria would die, but it would also affect his own cells, which meant...

She poured a quantity of the boiling mixture over his arm, and he screamed. It wasn’t just the temperature, although that was very uncomfortable by itself. No, the salt and the vinegar and the wine were all burning burning causing the cell death he had expected, which was fire in my veins causing his neurons to react poorly. He yanked his arm away instinctively. The woman jerked the pot back and hit him with the spoon. “Don’t be stupid! Do that again and I’ll tie you down!”

It took all of Zyran’s willpower for him to hold his burning arm still while the woman wiped it down with a rag soaked in hot disinfectant. He resigned himself to the fact that he was going to make a certain amount of noise and decided to just let it happen and try to focus on other things. Like the appearance of sweat. Other possibilities for the sudden presence of a water-based fluid including various minerals on his skin were... scant. Sweat could be metaphorically linked to condensation, but that was logically absurd. He couldn’t think of an explanation that involved anything other than apparently developing sweat glands overnight, but then, he was under stress. Stress that became significantly greater when the woman squeezed the spread edges of the tear together and began to sew it shut, opening new pathways for the salt and the vinegar and the wine and the herbs.

“Isn’t there a more efficient way to do that?” Zyran snapped.

“The very moment you come up with one, feel free to tell everyone about it. Now shut up, and for Kinn’s sake stop moving. This is tricky enough without you twitching like a mad iveri.”

“I think I am moving a perfectly acceptable ouch amount for someone who is being sewn together like a spare robe.”

“You go on thinking that to yourself as much as you like, but you keep insulting my stitching and making this more trouble than it has to be and I’ll send you right back on your way.”

Zyran was quiet for a moment, apart from a muffled grunt of pain. “I appreciate this.”

“I know you do. You had holes in your legs. Now you don’t. So stop being an ass about it and hold still. You move when you talk.” She paused and looked at him oddly. “How do you talk? Your... face moves, but...”

“Physical speech amplified and clarified by local generalized telepathy. A system devised by my master, self-contained, self-dependent.”

“And who’s your master?” She was watching him suspiciously.

He really needed a history. He couldn’t just keep blurting out his origin to everyone he met. But he couldn’t just make one up on the spot. “I am a servant of Death, the Inexorable Lord.”

The woman glared at him. He could feel her weighing, considering, judging. Her eyes were boring into him. “Are you.”

He was fairly certain that was a rhetorical question, so he waited.

After what seemed an age, she went back to stitching. “You don’t want to go around telling people that. My husband’s mother just died. He’d want your head.”

“That seems illogical. Servants are only needed for special cases.”

“What kind of special cases?”

“People that do not die naturally, for whatever reason. Usually they are using the Song in some way to try and prolong their lives. That’s when Death sends her servants to set things right.”

“So why do the rest of us die?”

“You simply do. Mortals have a moment of life in the universe, and then they die. That is how it has always been.”

“Mm-hm. So. Where are you going?”

“North.”

The corners of her mouth curved upwards. A smile. An expression of amusement or happiness, Zyran thought. “That’s a big place.”

“My guide is mute.”

“Your guide?” she said, sounding surprised. “Where’s he, then?”

“In my bag.”

The woman glanced at the bag and back to Zyran. She fixed him with a firm glare for a few moments, then reached for his bag and opened it. She dropped it immediately. “What is that? Is that a spirit?”

“A sakiru,” Zyran said. “It is unwell.”

“Well, you’re keeping it in a bag, of course it is!”

“What do you mean?” Zyran said blankly.

The woman reached into the bag and lifted out the sakiru. She gazed at it, her eyes reflecting its orange glow. “That’s a creature of light and air.” She carried the sakiru to the door and laid it on a barrel just outside. Zyran saw the fairy’s dorsal fin flutter. The woman came back inside and resumed stitching. “You can’t keep that thing in a bag.”

“Well, it can’t fly, and it needs to be transported somehow.”

“I think it’ll be able to fly again soon. I know animals. Make sure it gets plenty of light and it should be fine.”

Zyran was skeptical, but decided not to question the helpful animal. “Do you know when I will be able to walk again?”

“What, properly? Not for a while. A good moon’s turn, at least.”

“How long would that be?”

“...Thirty days, maybe. That’s for light walking, getting around a house. If you want to travel, it’ll be much longer. You may never be what you used to be.” She finished the last stitch, smeared in some of the lovely salve, relieving the pain immensely, and wrapped his upper arm tightly in bandages.

“Is there a place where I could obtain an... iveri?”

The woman considered. “Well, you could buy one from us, or from one of our neighbors. But no one’s just going to give you one, if that’s what you’re asking. Tame iveri are expensive.”

“What about wild ones?”

“You’ll never catch one, not like that. And if you’re catching them from the wild, you have to really know how to train them. Wild iveri are dangerous, not like tame ones. Rip your head off if you get too close.”

Zyran was stumped. He had his bag, his staff, and his robe. Nothing else. “What are my possessions worth?”

The woman laughed. “You could maybe buy some raw wool, if my husband’s feeling generous.”

Zyran thought. The beads on his robe caught the firelight, and he hesitated. He was loath to part with them, but... “What about these?”

The woman glanced at them. “They’re shiny, yes. What are they?”

“Invardyin. Ancient stores of Song energy,” Zyran lied smoothly. “Not useful to you, perhaps, but very valuable to Song users.” The beads did look like something like Araninian invardyin. Any inspection by a Song user would of course show that they were simply polished stones, but he hoped to be far away by then.

The woman inspected the beads curiously. “How valuable?”

“I cannot be certain. Most mortals, however, do not know how to create invardyin, so you could assume that these are unique on this world. Very valuable. Priceless, maybe.”

The woman considered. “I want four.”

“I only have six,” Zyran said in surprise.

“And you have nothing else. I might have saved your life. I certainly saved your arm. And you want me to sell you an iveri, our livelihood. So yes, four. One for each limb I mended, and one for the iveri.”

Zyran hesitated. If his beads had been invardyin, this trade would have been absurd. He probably could have bought the whole wretched country with one.

“I will take three, one way or another,” the woman warned him. “The last is your choice.”

“Fine,” Zyran said bitterly. He carefully unclasped four stones and handed them to the woman, who took them slowly and reverently. She gazed into their depths.

Being a variety of opal, they were in fact beautiful objects that seemed to imply magic. Even if they weren’t priceless treasures, they were still a type of stone often valuable on mortal worlds. Zyran realized that this sounded very much like he was trying to console himself. Odd. He had no particular reason to feel guilty.

The woman glanced at his robe, which now hung rather more widely open than it was supposed to. “I’ll throw in a pair of my husband’s pants.”

“You could at least consider a full set of clothing. I just gave you most of my possessions.”

“You should’ve bargained better. But since you’re new to it, fine, you can have a shirt and cloak, too. Maybe even something to hide your face.”

“Thank you,” Zyran said reluctantly.

The woman went to a curtained box in the corner—Zyran supposed hinges were too expensive for a proper cabinet—and placed the stones carefully inside. “What did you say they were called?”

“Invardyin.”

“Right,” she said, still gazing at them. “I suppose I should give you your things.” She looked for a few more moments before turning to a large sack and rifling through it. From deep within it she extracted a bundle of fabric. She unbundled it to reveal a pair of dark brown pants covered with old stains, a decaying gray shirt, and a ragged black blanket. “There we go.” She passed the items to Zyran.

He looked at them dubiously. They all seemed to be on the verge of disintegration. “This seems... unfair.”

“Well, look, I can’t be sure how much your invardyin are worth, and in the meantime, my loom is broken and we have no money for parts to build a replacement. So we can’t spare clothes. Or anything, really. I’ve used our wine on you, and half my stock of jenitra leaves, and I’m about to give you one of our iveri. We can’t afford anything else.”

“Ah,” Zyran said. He got the shirt over his head and put his left arm through the appropriate hole, but his right was proving more troublesome. The woman maneuvered the sleeve over his arm, then helped him get into the pants. He left the robe over them. He couldn’t get rid of it, not yet. The blanket turned out to have a clasp, which the woman showed him how to operate.

“Shoes?” Zyran asked hopefully.

The woman shook her head. “No, absolutely not. Raf’s barefoot as is. I’m going to cut up a sack for you to hide your face. You can wrap your feet in the rest, if you want.”

The sackcloth was incredibly scratchy. But it covered his Veil, and it cushioned his feet a little. Zyran forced himself to thank the woman.

“They’re your due,” she said. “Here, I’ll show you Mossal.” She helped him to his feet and supported him across the floor and outside. She situated him on the same barrel he had sat on earlier and whistled sharply.

After what seemed like a very long time, the most pathetic creature Zyran had ever seen came plodding out of the grove from behind the house. It was very thin, and its fur seemed to be falling off in patches. Its tail jutted crookedly out behind it, nearly dragging the ground. It came up to the woman and snuffled around her hands and apron.

“I haven’t got food,” the woman said, scratching the creature behind its tufted ears. It stretched its neck out, closed its eyes, and let out a low rumble, looking quite content.

“This is Mossal,” the woman said, leading the iveri over to Zyran. “He’s very old.”

“I can see that,” Zyran said weakly. “How long will it live?”

“Oh, a few turns yet,” the woman said. “He’s very loyal. He’ll serve you as best as he can. Watch your food, though.”

“What does it eat?”

“Anything, really. They like meat when they can get it, but they eat grass most of the time. They’ll take fruit, vegetables, even rakka in a pinch.”

“Rakka?”

“It’s a grain. Everyone eats rakka. Not here in the mountains, maybe, no place for it, but everywhere else, you can expect to have it every meal.”

“So I just let it eat anything?”

“Yes. Do you know how to ride?”

“I sat on one for a few seconds.”

“Right,” the woman said. “Mossal, down.”

The iveri let out a deep sigh, lowered itself to a sitting position, and then, slowly and with much creaking of joints, settled its front half to the ground as well, giving the woman a distinctly dirty look all the while. She took a very thick woolly pad from the wall of the cabin and slung it over Mossal’s back, fastening it tightly with a rope. Mossal did not take kindly to being told to lift its belly off the ground to get the rope under, but it complied.

The woman pulled Zyran to his feet and helped him get one leg over Mossal so he could sit on the iveri’s bony back, cushioned somewhat by the pad. “There you go, hold onto his shoulders if you’re off balance. Now tell him to get up.”

“Up,” Zyran said hesitantly. Mossal flicked an ear in his general direction.

“Go on, show him you mean it.”

“Up, Mossal!”

The iveri gave another long-suffering sigh and dragged itself to its feet. Zyran nearly fell. He couldn’t grip very tightly with his legs, and had to rely on his arms to keep himself on Mossal’s back.

“There you go,” the woman said. She buckled a thick leather collar with metal rings in the sides on Mossal’s thin neck and hooked a long strip of leather to the rings. She handed the strip to Zyran, who took it awkwardly. “No, turn your hands,” she said. Zyran complied, and she smiled. “There. Now you can turn him with that. It’s only for children and maybe some warriors normally, but your legs won’t work well enough to guide him for a while. Go on, try it.”

Zyran turned Mossal in a circle. “How do I go forward?”

“Usually with your legs. But for now you can just tell him, he’s well trained.”

“Forward,” Zyran said confidently. The iveri sighed again and set off at a walk. Zyran steered it back to the woman.

“You’re all set, then.” She hesitated. “Listen, I have to thank you. If those stones are worth half of what you say they are, you’ve saved us. The iveri have been getting sick, and we were going to have to sell the farm and try and make it to Caiross, that’s the capital, to find work. I know it doesn’t sound bad, but the farm’s been in my husband’s family for generations, and bandits on the road always go for families. Now I can take those stones to town and find a merchant who’ll buy them, and we can buy some new breeding stock, bring the place back to life.” She smiled suddenly, and her whole face seemed to light up from within. “Thank you.”

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Zyran said. He felt that annoying twinge in his stomach again. Guilt was wholly inappropriate in this situation. “I wish you good luck.” He inclined his head and set off down the mountain at a laborious trot.

“Wait!” the woman called after him. “You forgot your things!”

Zyran cursed and went back up to the cabin, where the woman handed him his staff and bag and placed the sakiru over the pad in front of him.

“Good luck,” the woman said. “You’re going to need it.”