The dogs trotted ahead, sniffing at the ground. The Budrahs followed; Erderak, Aus, and Berk brought up the rear.

Erderak would rather not rush the group as he knew they were catching up with the hunter. Furthermore, his soldiers had a whole sleepless night ahead. The officer had no doubt they would get the runaways, although they would probably lose a few lives. The hunter was anything but simple.

His guess about the child was almost certainly right. Everything fits. If the boy was off for the Passage, it ends today—exactly a month since Raven pointed at Lerk. Give or take two days for possible delays on his way.

They could even drop the chase and ambush for the boy at the house. His father was sure to come there too, once he realized he had failed to lure the chasteners away.

That’s if the boy is still alive.

If he died, his Weapon would have remained at the foot of the Peak of Spirits, just like his body. That meant one less problem. A Weapon posed no danger without its owner unless it got “adopted” by one of Magisterium’s animators—like Gelles, Aus, or Berk—as had happened with hundreds of other Weapons seized from Aspers. Such re-animated items legally belonged to the Magister and were used by the Guard.

But Erderak would rather have Gelles set up a Cerberus in the hunter’s hut to ambush the boy once he came. A Guard Cerberus was stronger than any self-made Weapon, particularly as “raw” a Weapon as the boy’s; it couldn’t have been through more than a handful of combats.

If his guess was wrong and the couple had no child, he’d rather not let the hunter escape with his two Weapons—the one freshly animated in Lerk and his old Asper’s. His wife probably carried one as well.

We’re damn lucky, anyway. Tracking just one Weapon, we’ll get several. And a whole Asper family.

Erderak wondered what the freshly animated item was. If it had been made for the boy, they’d probably used some charm or amulet. Something that could dangle from the neck—not easily lost and left both hands free. That was what Aspers would normally do.

Aspers. Stupid fanatics, almost extinct. Almost. So much easier to track them since we got Raven a few years after the Decree.

Erderak couldn’t help but hope that the hunter and the animator from Lerk would be the last two Aspers to die by his hand. Not to mention the boy. Dammit. If not for that stupid Passage, we could just take his Weapon away. But now he’s an Asper too and must die. If he’s still alive, that is.

Erderak recalled the Testament from Magister’s Book:

One-and-fifty years I give you, my children, to cleanse your land. If these years pass and Crealia still has even a single filthy Asper, a single unclean Weapon, then in Year 52 after the Decree, in the month of Blooming, in Decade 3 may Ana, the Child of Evil, enter Crealia by the shore of the Ironsea. Out of a fiery ring between land and water will she step, and in her hair will she carry Crimson Asp, a winged fiend of corruption.

The foresighted Raven will not see them coming since Asp is not born in the land of Crealia, from another world he comes. Asp, the winged serpent, will arrive here weak, like any newly animated Weapon, but a great power he has: to stop the flow of time and choose the right path. By devouring the Cores of destroyed enemies, will he grow stronger.

Ana will plunge Crealia into anarchy and chaos.

But if you cleanse your land of filth in one-and-fifty years, the Child of Evil will not come, and Crealia will enter an age of grace and prosperity never known before.

Well, we still have two years, Erderak thought. Day after day, we chasteners keep cleansing Crealia of those fanatics. Not that they really believe in Ana’s coming; the Magister’s Book is alien to them. It’s him who gave them the name of Aspers; they just picked it up to define themselves, the followers of old ways, resistors to the new order.

…And yet another thing to worry about.

At night, he’d heard Spider whisper right when his squad had been approaching the hunter’s hut, so he had no time to listen. But he’d rather not ignore the message; in a chastener’s work, any small detail could matter.

In the meantime, the spider ring kept trying to tell him something, tickling at his ear with tiny metal legs.

Just a moment, my dear.

Closing his eyes, the chastener mentally united with Spider. In a moment, he flung his eyes open.

What a little devil.

Erderak’s guess was confirmed, but he had underestimated the boy who’d been watching him this whole time through…through his trumpeting Angel amulet cutting into Spider’s mind back then, on the approach to the hut!

Very, very bad.

He had to cut the channel immediately.

Rolling his eyes upwards, Erderak connected back to Spider and interrupted the flow. The metal legs on his ear froze still, but the boy already knew enough. He wouldn’t come home.

Unless…unless we convince him.

Erderak’s lidded eyes stirred into motion, just as the legs of his Spider earring stirred, now moving much faster than before.

***

…A crack of the whip. A clap of thunder.

The forest path vanished. I was cast back to the void that had no top and no bottom.

A flap of wings revealed the familiar pass far below.

With another flap, Angel descended into the grass, gray with morning dew.

I woke in my nest between the rocks. Dawn was breaking, although the sun had not yet risen.

The Whistle dangled from my neck. I felt sick. My head was swimming, filled with mist interrupted by flashes of pain and pulsing words from my recent dream. Home, Kasamarchi! Hurry! Mother is dying. We can’t come to meet you.

With a pounding heart, I sprung to my feet. Something else was lurking beneath these pulsing words, but I could not make it out, deafened by the crazy beat clawing at my brain like a giant spider.

Home! Hurry!

Mommy!

My feet rushed me over the pass, my heart pumping blood through my sleepy body, a new headache pulsing at my temples. Run, run, run, run.

I did my best to ignore this pulsing pain, though it was hammering my head, making me sick. Run, run, run, run, run.

What’s wrong with Mother?

Rushing over the rocks with my teeth clenched, I could no longer think. The pain was driving me crazy. A thought that maybe I shouldn’t put so much trust into visions flashed at the edge of my mind, but the spider’s legs knocked a loud rhythm, scaring other thoughts away. Run, run, run, run, run.

Our parting spot.

See you, my little sparrow…

No one here.

My heart started at realizing it was not just a dream.

What’s happened to you, Mommy?

My heart had already adapted to a run, my headache subsided, but the pincers of fear closed tighter and tighter around my heart.

Mother! Mommy!

I dashed onto the familiar slope. The sun was already high, although covered by clouds, a cold wind blowing.

Our tiny hut. Its dear windows, dark stone walls…half-open door.

So they are at home.

I’m here, Mommy!

Darting down the familiar path, I tried to get rid of the foreboding feeling, the mist still filling my head and the spider drumming on my brain. Run, run, run, run.

Although I could not think properly, I could still see.

The young tree Father and I had planted a few years before was broken.

The shed door was barred, although we always opened it in the morning.

…and the broom was missing from its proper place to the right of the door.

The broom!

As a small child, I used to be afraid of it.

What’s the matter with you, my boy? It’s just a broom. We use it to sweep the yard. Come closer, Kasamarchi. Touch it.

To me, the broom looked like a predatory creature, with a long, narrow head and sharp, stinging hair always standing on end. I would do my best to stay clear of it, especially when it swept the yard in Father’s hands.

When I grew up and got my Whistle, I would often imagine Angel fighting the Stinging Beast, the broom…

The first raindrops fell on my forehead as I burst into the hut, already realizing that it was empty, but still, I screamed, “Mom! Dad!”

…and a crazy whirlwind of events began that my memory only retained as fragmented images.

One.

The broom is stuck amidst the hut, its handle driven into the floor with such great force it had broken through the wooden boards.

Two.

The broom explodes, filling the air with hundreds of sharp, wheezing twigs.

Crash of furniture.

Splashing of broken dishes.

Glassy ringing of shattered windows.

Angel’s dark figure shielding me, enduring the attack of dozens of stingers that immediately start searching the room for easier prey.

Three.

I rush for the open door, avoiding the sharp twigs flashing around, the spot of light that offers safety so devastatingly slow to approach…

Four.

The mist that has been dulling my memories all morning clears. The tiny steel claws that hammered the lie about Mother into my head leave as well.

I see the images and ideas from the night chastener’s memory flash before my eyes, appallingly clear. Return to the house and set up a good Cerberus… in Year 52 after the Decree, in the month of Blooming, in Decade 3… by devouring the Cores of destroyed enemies, will he grow stronger…what a little devil …wouldn’t come home…unless we convince him.

Five.

So that’s the truth.

Now connect to Spider again.

Rolling my eyes upwards, I give a mental command to Angel. Cerberus reacted to a rat. The boy didn’t come. He drowned in the Lizard River in the morning.

Six.

Standing in the doorway, I cast one last glance back and see no Angel. I just catch a glimpse of my tiny amulet falling into a crack in the floor.

Rolling out into pouring rain, I run away from the house.

…The boy didn’t come. He drowned in the Lizard River in the morning.

My words, forwarded by Angel to the chastener through his Spider, kept resounding in my ears.

It was the last thing Angel had done for me before rolling into that crack. Not to mention shielding me from the attacking Cerberus.

“I will come back for you. I promise,” I whispered, choking on my tears. The sobs escaped my throat as I watched the last images Angel had passed to me, seizing them from the chastener’s memory.

***

…They ran my parents down, pressing them to the edge of a cliff over the Lizard.

Once the eight dogs and four Budrahs remaining with Erderak rushed in to attack, the forged wolf’s head on Father’s buckle stretched, leaping out. Baring its fangs, a big, copper-haired wolf jumped down, growling, to block the attackers’ way.

The first dogs jumped at the wolf and were scattered instantly. Dark drops fell to the stones as painful squealing resounded over the Lizard.

At the same moment, a ruby light in Mother’s ring flashed in the morning sun. A butterfly fluttered off of her hand to hover over the attackers, covering them with the shadow of great semi-transparent wings. Then the wings flickered, showering the remaining dogs and Budrahs with fiery rain.

With a humming sound, the scorching drops hit the rolling dogs, the roaring Budrahs, and the copper Wolf that was the only one taking no damage. The smell of burning hair spread over the bank.

One Budrah, blinded by fire, darted off the edge, collapsing into the shallow water far below. Another got his spine broken by Wolf.

Pursing his lips, Erderak turned to Aus and Berk, who were waiting for his command, and nodded slightly. His Spider rolled over the ground with a metal clang, and four long black shadows charged at the runaways.

Rising on its swiveling legs and turning the sharp end of its metal belly up, Spider squirted a portion of sticky white liquid at Butterfly. Spreading over the laced wings, the liquid hardened instantly. Backing up, Spider tugged at the thick thread coming out of his belly, crashing Butterfly down to the rocks.

Covering the distance in several giant leaps, Spider slashed at the lace of her wings, reducing them to dust.

The leopards brought Wolf down, their teeth ripping his copper flesh like thick paper, while the surviving Budrahs and dogs charged at my parents.

Looking at each other one last time, they joined hands and stepped off the cliff…

…believing their son had lived.

***

“I h-h-have,” I stammered, my teeth chattering as I shivered with cold.

Tears mixed with rain poured into my eyes, and cold wind lashed my face as my heart was burned to ashes. In a few moments, it was gone; I exhaled its remains as a hot cloud of vapor.

My chest was empty.

Casting one last glance at my sweet home, now a cursed hole, I bolted down to the river, slipping on the wet ground. The torrents of rain cooled my hot forehead, washing my face clean.

I had to hurry before anyone knew I hadn’t drowned in the Lizard that morning.

… I’d never get to see my parents’ bodies. The Budrahs coming with Gelles would take them to the Magisterium. The chastener and the wizard would come back to the hut at dusk, but their dogs wouldn’t pick up the scent, thanks to the rain.

Searching the hut, Erderak would find a rat’s body ripped apart by stings, but he wouldn’t check the crack in the floor under Broom. Not foolish enough to trust a mere voice in his head, he’d send soldiers down to the river to retrieve my body. Remaining there till dawn, they’d get replaced by other guards who’d search the Lizard River for three more days.

On the second day, they’d find a dagger in the shallow—my dagger’s “twin” that I’d found at the Peak. The third day would reward them with a boy’s vest stuck in the river rocks. Examining their finds, they’d discover that the dagger had been forged by the same hand as the hunter’s Weapon, and the vest had been stitched by the same hand as all the other clothing in the hut.

Since my body was never retrieved, the Magister would order to keep the Cerberus stationed at the house indefinitely.

I’d spend two years in the forest-clad Foothills, avoiding people and storing everything I’d learned through the chastener’s Spider in my memory.

With my parents dead, my only hope would be the coming of Ana, promised by the holy book.

Obeying a vague call, I’d steal a piece of metal from a local blacksmith and use it to make a spear for Asp’s tail, polishing it to a shine with my fingers during all the nights I’d spend in my dugout. I would warm the spear in my hands and say, like a prayer, “In Year 52 after the Decree, in the month of Blooming, in Decade 3 may Ana, the Child of Evil, enter Crealia by the shore of the Ironsea.”

From the talks I’d overhear, I’d learn why Aspers needed the vulture’s feather, but I’d never get to use this new knowledge.

…In the middle of a spring day, one of many Crealian vagrants—a dirty-faced boy of about ten—would ask a stout female trader in Lerk’s market, “When is the third decade of the month of Blooming, ma’am?”

Squinting suspiciously at the boy, who could be attempting to steal something from her stall, the woman would grunt, “It begins in a week.”

…I would ask a few more people in other places to make sure.

Two days before this date, I would come to the shore.

Despite the past two years being quiet, the Magister will have the Crealian shore of the Ironsea patrolled day and night as the spring of Year 52 comes. So the white sand will swarm with red dogs, the nearby forests will tremble to the hooves of galloping Budrahs, and flying observers like the Ice Hawk will cross the sky.

But over the past two years, I’ve learned the art of being invisible…and lucky. What else but luck could explain the eight red dogs not being the first to hear the portal pop open in the pre-dawn silence and seeing a barefoot girl in a strange dress walking down the shore?

***

…I came to—and up—from a bottomless chasm.

Where am I this time?

Am I finally awake?

Without opening my eyes, I listened.

The sound of the flowing river.

Birds chirping.

Fire snapping vigorously at the twigs.

Something cold and wet gently touching my cheek.

I opened my eyes.

And saw two rusty-brown nostrils breathing right in my face, and a painted, matted eye on a narrow snout scrutinizing me.

Screaming, I jumped up, staring back at the weird creature at my feet.

The baby crocoboat waved its tiny tail at me.

“Good morning,” Kasamarchi said, turning to me from the fire.