Makatai continued on his way back to camp, with a million thoughts racing through his mind like wolves after a deer. The more he thought, the more bile climbed from his stomach, the threat of vomiting becoming a reality as he dropped to his knees and threw up. What was all that? Was he insane? But he knew that couldn’t be, because as he looked back he saw his tracks in the grass had come from thin air. He really had been in the Otherworld. But, as he noted the position of the moon, he realised that it had remained almost stationary during his time there almost as though no time had passed at all. That confirmed it in his mind. He really had been speaking to a spirit, the spirit of an old friend of his father. And he was the bearer of a Ghostshift?

How could he, a shaman, not have sensed this? Perhaps Noaidi had masked his presence? That and the fact that he was still a newly learned shaman meant he could understand perhaps why he had not detected Noaidi’s presence before. But what of his mother? She had been a shaman since prior to his birth! Makatai had been in training for 4 years, his mother only just having finished passing her knowledge on. How could she not have known?

There were so many questions that needed answering, and yet Makatai felt a wave of exhaustion engulf his body and threaten to send him to sleep right then and there. Thankfully upon inspection he recognised the tall, familiar shape of Earthshaper’s Grasp in the near vicinity and set off again, images of his warm sleeping skin filling his mind and banishing thoughts of anything else.

With everything silent and the central fire all but completely exhausted, Makatai crept into his tent, directly next to his mothers, and stripped himself of his stifling clothing. Lying down and pulling the cozy pelt over and around his body and up to his neck, his head quickly clouded and lolled back in exhaustion against the padding. The silky fur enveloped him and he slipped quickly and tranquilly into rest.

The next morning he was woken, by screaming. Screaming louder than any had heard in his life, almost threatening to burst his eardrums. He clapped his hands over his ears and could almost feel the vibrating sound cutting through his palms. It was an agony unlike any he had previously felt. And yet, almost as soon as it had begun, the sound faded into the mere laughter of children. Makatai sat up in the darkness, sweating from the fleeting terror. Had that truly been all it was? Even then he listened carefully again and nothing but the sounds of joy and excitement for the evening coming filled his ears. Rubbing his ears again and writing it off as the sounds of day penetrating his sleep, he rose slowly to his feet.

The morning air was cold against his bare skin, and although the tent was dark he saw his toned arms prick and his hair stand on end. Quickly seeking and donning his clothes, he felt his stomach deeply grumbling and decided that some food to ease his hunger was the best course of action. He noted daylight filtering in from below the tent flap and, sweeping it aside, his pupils instantly overflowed with daylight and caused him to avert his gaze. The day was so terribly bright that he winced and backed away from the flap again, closing it as he screwed his eyes shut only to be greeted by spots dancing behind them. His pupils slowly adjusted to the minimal light allowed into the tent and he very slowly advanced through the threshold again, shielding his eyes until they adjusted completely.

The people of the Rising Bear greeted him as he passed and he greeted them in turn, their smiling and cheery faces always a welcome sight. The rapidly approaching Otherworlds harvest taking place the next day meant that the whole town was jovial and in high spirits, the prospect of seeing their deceased loved ones bringing them all excitement. However Makatai did not share in their carefree attitudes as thoughts of last night's events still flitted in and out of his imagination, leaving him with an overall sense of dread as he made his way towards the central fire in search of something to eat.

His hunger was starting to mount. In fact, he was beginning to become ravenous and the smell of cooking meat was clogging his nostrils. Finding his way to the fire he spotted the large leg of a bison responsible for the smell, roasting slowly on a spit turning gently in the morning sun. Now almost shaking with hunger he sprinted across the common and started to tear ravenously at the tender flank, shoving aside the elder Bear who had been cooking it and stuffing chunks into his mouth. He sunk his teeth deep and tore into the flesh, ripping at it and swallowing without so much as even pausing to chew, ignoring the multiple fascinated gazes from his tribemates as he did so. The scent that rose from it only served to exacerbate his hunger, and as that rose so too did the savagery of his actions.

He only stopped when the elder who he had pushed aside put a hand on his shoulder. Makatai turned to see the old man with a look of concern covering his face. “Are you… quite alright, Makatai?” With the overbearing and unnatural hunger fading almost faster than it had come on, Makatai put the bison down on a large wooden plate and stood up quickly, wiping the juices from around his mouth with his bracer. Coming to his senses and noticing the many wary stares from the people around him, who seemed slightly afraid by the departure from Makatai’s usual cool and analytical character, he began to stutter out a few words but was quickly cut off by Kotan, the aforementioned elder. “It’s alright everyone! Makatai is merely starving after his journey yesterday, especially since he didnt eat with us. Isn’t that right son?” He turned to Makatai, a gentle look in his eye, and Makatai mustered up some words of agreement. “Yeah… yes, that’s right. I’m sorry about that everyone. I’ll… I’ll fetch another leg. Just a moment". There was far more than enough food in storage, what with the harvest taking place this evening. “Thank you son, and don’t worry. I’m sure you’re tired after all your hard work yesterday. We all appreciate everything you do for us”. Kotan smiled kindly, putting Makatai a little more at ease. The gathered crowd started to disperse, with the people resuming their tasks in preparation. Makatai’s internal voice thanked him over and over, but outwardly only a slight smile passed over his lips before he hurried off to replace the meal he had interrupted.

Meandering towards the storage hut, where both the meats and the live animals were kept in preparation for the coming festival, Makatai tried to rationalise his entirely abnormal behaviour. However the more he thought about it the less varied the explanations became, until it became painfully obvious what had caused it and he was unable to ignore it any longer. The only thing that had changed from the night before to that very morning was his meeting with the spirit of Noaidi. The spirit who supposedly currently resided in him. However how could that have been possible? Was it really true that no one had known, and that he hadn’t realised, for nineteen years of his life? If that really was the truth why had Noaidi hidden himself? When had they even come into contact for a binding of souls to occur? So many questions raced through his mind that his head began to hurt. He retrieved another bison leg and slung it over his shoulder. The captive animals rattled in their cages, and he did truly sympathise with them, but without their sacrifices the harvest couldn’t go ahead. He pushed those thoughts from his mind and headed back towards the campfire.

Having returned with the leg, and after profusely apologizing to everyone who had gone hungry, he made his way to Earthshapers grasp. Needing time to think, he could picture no better spot. There was still plenty of time before the harvest, and despite having agreed with Ahanu and Aitya that they would spend it together he needed some time alone to come up with reasons behind the events throughout the last 12 hours.

Climbing to the top swiftly and naturally he sat himself against the rocky outcrop that would have been the thumb of the hand, had it been a hand at all. Leant against the rock as he was, with the sun at his back and no sound but the very distant murmurs of the village far below, it almost felt like he could forget what had transpired the night before. Barely a cloud drifted through the sky above, and far to his right an eagle soared through the air, circling high above.

This tranquility lasted for the better part of a minute when the silence was unceremoniously broken by a voice in the back of his head. “There is a truly beautiful view from so high up. I can see why you spend so much time here”. At the same time, a sudden spiritual pressure came down around Makatai’s shoulders and ice raced down his spine. His face promptly fell into a scowl, recognising that voice from last night. “So it wasn’t a dream…” Responded the young man under his breath, half in exasperation to himself. “This is seriously happening”. “Yes. I’m afraid it is. And we should talk properly, now that I can reveal myself at will.” responded the chief, his form slowly starting to materialise across the stone outcrop from Makatai. The pair sat facing each other, Noaidi slightly translucent in the day. His narrow eyes had an ingrained look of pride in them that Makatai did not at all like. “I trust you have a lot of questions. In fact, I know so. I know everything you think. Everything you feel.”

“First of all, when did this happen? I don’t understand. When did our souls bind together? I would have noticed a soul as powerful as yours miles away”. Even now he felt waves of energy radiating from Noaidi as he sat opposite. Was this the power of a ghostshifted soul? It was of a magnitude unlike any he had ever experienced, or even been taught of before. Suddenly he realised with no doubt that his mother alongside every other shaman within 5 miles had sensed his presence, and was about to stand hurriedly when Noaidi interrupted.

“There is no cause for concern, Plainstrider. It takes focus and concentration, but I have limited my spiritual pressure to the immediate area. No-one else is aware of the current situation. Please, relax and ask your questions, although I fear I may not have the answer to all of them.” “Fine.” replied Makatai, still regarding the chief with an entirely wary gaze. He did not like the feeling he got from the elder man.

“As I said. How did this all come about?” “It started at your conception, Makatai. Upon your fathers return to the village, after the slaughter that occurred, as I told you he found only my spirit remaining in the ruins of our old encampment among the slaughtered masses of our clan. I clung to him and revealed myself. We tried as best we could to affix our souls together perfectly and form a ghostshift, but his body rejected me time after time. Why, neither of us could come to understand despite your fathers extensive research into the true nature of spirits, and the Otherworld’s relation to the living world. Instead, I bound myself to his body in an imperfect manner and, after a manner of months of travelling, he met your mother. Her parents had recently passed away at the time and he was the perfect escape for her. Wise, charming, brave, strong. He taught her her knowledge of shamanism in just over a year”. “I’m fully aware of the details of their relationship. As you should already know, since you claim to know everything I think.” Makatai cut his story short. “Hurry up with it, spirit. Why are WE ghostshifted?” This interruption clearly aggravated Noaidi, whose face darkened slightly before he raised his gaunt face and moved to continue.

“Your father passed me into your mother’s womb at your inception, where our souls fused, and I agreed to keep my presence suppressed until I found you of strength of character enough to accept the truth fully. This is why you never noticed my presence before now. As of last night, the seal I placed upon myself to suppress my presence has been shattered. My spiritual energy will only grow stronger as it returns to me in the months to come”

Makatai considered for a moment. After careful consideration he spoke up, addressing another question to the chief. “I understand. So why, then, have you revealed yourself to me now? You judge me to be “worthy” of your presence?” “No”. The other man replied bluntly. “I have chosen now as my time because two developments have come to pass that have been escalating in severity for a long time, and I can ignore neither any further. The first of which being a warning that your father issued to me not long before I last saw him. He told me that through his wanderings and forays into the Otherworld he had learned of a cataclysmic event that would devastate both worlds should it come to pass, and the gears of destruction would start to turn soon after your nineteenth birthday. Second of all, I have been noticing gradual changes in the Otherworld which are starting to mount. Spirits disappearing. Vast masses of spiritual energy beginning to shift deep below, in the furthest reaches and blackest points of the Otherworld. Old and ancient entities stirring from their once thought eternal slumber. An evil eye slowly opening, showing those who see it visions of insatiable hunger and petrifying horror. Whether these were premonitions of the future or dark visions of the present, I cannot say. But your father knew of their coming, although again how I was never told.”

Makatai was reeling. This couldn’t be the case. Millions of thoughts raced through his head like a panicked school of fish attempting to escape a hunting shark. How could one word this apparition spoke be true? And yet, in some unspeakable kind of way, he knew it was. He felt Noaidi’s fear at the thought of these events coming to pass and realised he was allowing him to feel them. Noaidi let Makatai reach in a little further, and he rewarded him with a memory of his father. He saw through Noaidi’s eyes the image of his fathers handsome face crinkling with laughter as the pair sat together, watching the good people of the Black Eagle go about their lives, painted clear as day in the canvas of his mind. Happiness and satisfaction slowly washed over him, and he relaxed back against the rock.

Noaidi adopted a more sour expression whilst Makatai looked away, with his face falling and mouth turning to a grimace. He ripped the tranquil memory of the past away, and replaced it with something far more disturbing. Makatai started, jerking up from where he sat but instantly clapped his hand to his forehead. No image came through this time, instead replaced by only feelings of suffering, pain and anger. A rage unlike any he had ever experienced before in his life. The emotion was so strong that he dug his nails into his palm, drawing blood. The veins pounded in his head as it began to ache and he felt like his skull would split. But as quickly as they had come the feelings faded and Makatai slumped back, beads of sweat forming on his forehead and breathing hard.

He could deny it no longer, no matter how much he wanted to. His soul was bound to that of the old chieftains, and there was no avoiding it or shying away from it. “Listen to me now, Makatai. I know that you find this all impossible to believe. But we must find your father. He and his research are the only hope we have of denying this dark fate an opportunity to come to pass. He must know something that we can use to uncover the source of these disturbances, and repair the damage done to the Otherworld before the effects start to seep over to the other side. As you have been taught the worlds mimic each other. Eventually the damage will break through to this side of the veil and enact vast destruction upon the living world.” An insidious vision began to creep into the mind’s eye of the boy. A black chasm below thousands of leagues of ocean, and a horrific feeling of dread emanating from the bottom. Climbing slowly out from the deep below like rot infesting a dead body.

The vision cleared, but it left a pit just as deep in Makatai’s stomach. The dread he had been feeling since Noaidi’s earlier proclamations only became more intense with every passing second. However, he was nothing if not rational. How could he take off on a whim so easily and leave behind everything he knew to fulfil a request from a voice that had long since left him behind? Why should he lift a finger to assist his father, who had done nothing but leave his mother alone with child and to whom he owed not one ounce of allegiance? There were many nights throughout his childhood where he had heard his mother cry in the tent next to his, almost silently so as not to disturb him. But he heard it nonetheless, and each sob drove another wedge in between him and his father.

Makatai considered further. On the other hand, however, he had always wanted answers straight from his father, and these second hand testimonies from the mouth of a dead man wouldn’t do. Inadu’s actions were more forgivable (if barely) if he really had left his mother for the sake of the world and to locate the cause of these newly emerging disturbances. But why hadn’t he bothered to inform anyone other than a spirit of his plans? Likely sensing Makatai’s reluctance, Noaidi moved to explain. “Your mother was never told because your father knew she would insist on coming with him, and he never wanted to put her in harm's way”. “How is that any better!? He would let her suffer alone with no knowledge of his whereabouts?” Makatai was close to bursting. “How can you defend him when you yourself have seen the effects of his absence on my mother?”

“And you would have had her die instead?” Noaidi snapped back. “Met her end in a far off land following your father on a path far too treacherous for her? Would you perhaps have preferred that? And what about you? He knew he had given her child, he could feel your soul stirring within her. You would have liked him to thrust a pregnant woman into the fray? Follow him down insidious pathways, risking both your lives time and time again, following him to the very edges of the world itself in search of an uncertain goal? Would that have reassured you of his character?”

Makatai fell silent. The old spirit’s words were starting to take effect, and he knew he had a point. His mother had always spoken so highly of Inadu, even if he had vanished without sharing his plans. As he considered this, he felt his longing to leave his tribe behind and set out into the world welling up within him. What better reason, he thought, than to find his father? The other shamans would be fine. Ahanu was right! They were growing lazy as day by day he took care of regular business that should have fallen to them to manage anyway! But even as he thought this, his conscience threatened him with an awkward guilt and he paused to reconsider. He owed everything to the people in his corner of Navaho. Could he really leave them behind, just like that, to strike out on his own? He wanted to go. He truly did. But he wasn’t convinced.

Noaidi felt his hesitance, and gave Makatai a more sympathetic look. He spoke again, attempting to convince Makatai further. “Inadu entrusted this to you. He knew you would one day grow into a man strong enough to follow in his footsteps and help him rage against the coming dark. But for that we need to find him, and quickly! Don’t you see, Makatai? I’ve shown you my knowledge, you know it’s the truth! This affects more than just you or I. More than just Navaho. The fate of the Otherworld directly influences the fate of the living world! You can’t ignore this! And if you do, nobody will be able to soon.” “I… I don’t know. How can I just leave everything behind? Where would we even begin looking? We have no plan and no idea actually what the issue is. All we have to go on is a vague warning and some abnormal occurrences in a completely unpredictable world.” Makatai gathered steam as he spoke, beginning to convince himself that he was right again.

Noaidi’s expression turned ice cold, and his eyes bore a menacing look. “Fine. But let me tell you this: what you see tonight will serve as proof of my word. Otherworld’s Harvest will not proceed as you might hope. A word of warning to you who would ignore it: if you are as complacent tonight as you are now, you will lose everything that made you want to stay here in the first place. As for where your father might be, I don’t know exactly. However I know where we should start on our search.” Noaidi clenched his jaw, that icy look never fading. “Good luck tonight, Plainstrider. You’ll need it.” And with that bone-chilling warning, Noaidi faded with the breeze, leaving Makatai irritated, confused and ready to go back to the village.