Ahead, Wing could see the spread of his family’s large home — the beautiful two-storied Mesko wood home, the huge barn and hay loft, the peeiopi coop, the corral, the smooth layer of grass surrounding it, and fields stretching out on all sides to the dark of the valley’s mountainous the tree line.
Bright now with the prospect of seeing his family, Wing picked up his pace. In moments, his mother and fa would know he was safe. Soon after that, he would be lying in the dark of the room he shared with Nien, retelling the incredible story to brother.
But then the main door of his home opened and out came a half dozen men. One held a blazing torch in his hand from which he lit the torches held by the others, each one jumping to life with startling brilliance against the black depth of the night-filled valley. Comprehension burst like lightning in Wing’s head followed by a suffocating dread.
He came to a quick, jerking stop.
Unconsciously, he began to sink down in the tall grasses to hide himself.
From inside the protective cover, he stared out at the torches as they bobbed up and down above the grass tops, fanning out in his direction. Cowering within the dark of the green, he experienced the overwhelming urge to turn and run back into the mountains and wait it out, maybe he could find the shy’teh again and there be safe.
But they were looking for him and, at the front of search party, Wing saw his father. In a flash of torchlight, he could see his father’s face, rent with worry.
There was nothing for it. He was caught, again, as surely as he’d caught in the trap, except this almost felt worse. His hope for simply returning to the house and relating the miracle of the night to his mother and fa would not be possible now. Instead there would be a dramatic scene, a flood of questions, some kind of chastisement and warning about the dangers of leaving the valley, a reaffirmation of why Rieevans never, ever, ventured beyond the valley.
Summoning more courage than it had taken for him to look into the face of the shy’teh, he forced his wobbly knees to straighten, knowing the movement would bring him into view of the search party.
He stood, eyes closed, fists clenched around tall blades of grass, as a shout rang out:
“Hey, over there! Over there! I found him!”
His eyes were still closed as he heard the men begin to run toward him. Thankfully, it was his fa that reached him first. Wing opened his eyes as his fa, Joash, came to his knees in front of him, grabbing Wing up in his huge embrace.
“Son,” he muttered into Wing’s shoulder.
Wing shook with the force of his fa’s relief. After a protracted moment, his father sat back and took Wing by the shoulders, his big hands hot and strong upon his arms.
“Yosha,” Joash swore, “where have you been? Are you all right?”
Wing went to answer but stopped as the other men reached them. Looking at his fa, Wing wished he could impart what had happened with the trap and the shy’teh. But that would be impossible, and it wasn’t just that the other men were there, it was that Wing realized that the truth of what had transpired could not be related in words.
He could see his father searching his face, trying to ascertain what Wing wanted but was unable to say.
Wing glanced up warily at the other men as they came to stand around him and his fa, the light of their torches dancing in a circle.
As they all waited for an explanation, Wing looked once more at his fa, pleadingly, and then training his eyes straight up through the ring of torch light surrounding him to the sky, said, “Sorry, Fa, I got caught in a trap.”
“A trap?” one of the Villagers asked at the same time his father was about to.
Wing shrugged his thin shoulders. “E’te. A really old one. It was all rusted and everything. I fell and my arm got caught in it.”
His fa reached out and took Wing’s thin arms in his hands, looking them over. It took only a moment for him to discover Wing’s torn, bruised, and swollen wrist.
“How did you get out of it?” his father asked, holding Wing’s wounded arm gently.
“Well, there was this…creature. It got me out.”
“Creature?” one of the men asked. “What kind of creature?”
Wing could feel all of the men looking at him now and, under their gazes, he felt an undercurrent of suspicion and doubt. Wing felt sick as they grew quiet, waiting his response.
“I think,” Wing said, his mind churning, wondering now if he dared be honest. “I think,” he stammered, “maybe, it was a shy’teh.”
The eyes of the search party shifted from Wing to his fa and back to Wing again. But Wing had kept his eyes up, focusing intently on the night sky. But when his father hadn’t said anything, he lowered his eyes and looked at him. There, Wing saw the same thing he’d seen in the eyes of the father with the red-haired son in his dream. He didn’t know exactly what it meant, but he could see the deep concern.
His fa stood then, placing one of his hands on Wing’s shoulder as he turned to the men of the search party.
“Thank you, gentlemen, for coming out to help. Let’s get all of us back to our families.”
Reluctantly, it seemed, the men began heading back toward the house and their horses.
As Wing walked along behind them with his fa, he could feel the eyes of the men straying to him. Wing knew he hadn’t said much. He hadn’t said anything in fact, but his words had altered the mood of the search party. There had been no scolding, no thunderous fall of queries, just a strange silence as they moved back across the fields, the only sound that of legs moving through the tall grasses and the crackle of torch fire.
Somewhere in the black mountains Wing imagined the shy’teh to be and somewhere inside of himself made note of a space where he and the shy’teh might meet again. As for whatever might pass between that time and now, Wing held comfort in the fact that he could still tell Nien what had happened, how Wing and the cat had been able to communicate, that they had known one another, and most importantly of the epiphany he had experienced, a peek into the universe, its workings, the interconnectedness of all things, and how this had been the greatest part of what had happened, the part that he knew now had changed him forever. Such a simple thing. And yet he could not say it. Could never explain it. He knew that once the story got out the only thing the people would know is that Wing had been caught in a trap and a shy’teh had saved him — if they believed him.
He felt a surge of loneliness.
On the heels of that feeling, however, he thought of Nien. Soon he would be home, the men would be leaving, and he could tell Nien the truth of what had happened. And, of course, there was the shy’teh.
Wing glanced to his right, up at the mountains dark with night, the trees shimmering beneath the light of pale moons, and thought of the shy’teh. No matter what came now, imagining the big cat out there somewhere was a comfort. And though to his people the creature would forever be a thing of myth and legend, or, as it was now, the imagining of a small boy who had been lost and scared in the mountains, Wing knew better. Not only was the shy’teh real but something far more important —
It was a part of him.
Revolution 787
Sixteen Revolutions Later
Chapter 1
Sight
H e had long black hair and eyes the colour of the sea. He was intertwined with the land like the roots of a giant tree. Of its soil, he ate. Of its green, he breathed. He drank of the sky and jagged rise of majestic mountain. Ever-present in a world only he could see, his feeling was calm and centered, sourced from the core of the planet. This extra-sense helped him store up strength against the night, nights like this one, nights deep enough to pull him from the world of the living into a place no one else could follow —
Except Nien.
Nien’s skin was the colour of moonlight on black water. His hazel-brown eyes were flaked with gold. He matched his brother in height. He was kind. Not of a considered politeness, but kind of nature, kind of character, a kind of character adored
and admired. He challenged his adopted world and yet they could not help but want him near. And right now, was the middle of the night and his brother, Wing, had woken him.
From across the room, Wing’s breath and body spoke a language that needed no translation.
Nien slid out of bed and stepped to Wing’s side just the other side of the room, just below the small window. Reaching out, he placed his hands upon Wing’s shoulders and said his brother’s name.
But Wing did not feel his brother’s hands nor did he hear him call his name for he was lost, carried, consumed by the nightmare that twisted his mind, daring him to decipher which was real: the world of home and family or the hellish realm that held him bound.
Layered in the sweat of grief, of strain, of something not short of terror, Wing wrestled against the confines of the soaked bedsheets that twisted and tightened around his chest like a tight white hand. The struggle matted his black hair across his face, around his neck, shining his olive skin and making it glisten beneath the touch of moonlight through the half-opened window. This, Wing was unaware of, for in his mind everything was sinking into a mawing crevasse that split the side of a monstrous cliff. Buildings, homes, castles, battle ships, all vanishing into the black behind a whirling grey cloud of mist. An endless line of beings was disappearing through the crevasse as well — men, women, and children — bound together by long cords of rope, thick as a man’s wrist. Soldiers on huge horses, their faces obscured, were herding them along with long leather whips that cut through the air above the captives’ heads. The depressing line moved, collective head down, as above the sky roiled with black smoke.
Wing coughed, gagging, every breath a lung-rupturing slash of ash and fire.
Standing, his tall frame silhouetted against the cliffs, he raised a hand toward the black crevasse — whether in supplication or summons, he could not tell. But then something caused him to look back. His black hair fell across his shoulder and his eyes narrowed and spotted a rider, coming at speed across an ocean of wind-rushed grasses. The figure drew in upon him so fast Wing was forced to take a step back.
“Merehr,” the figure said. “Merehr, help.”
He looked down at the bowed figure, made to speak but a great sound, like the splitting of some distant world’s atmosphere, drew his attention back to the trudging line of captives as they disappeared through the deep grey chasm in the side of the cliff. The whole world was disappearing into that impossible gap.
Glancing down again, Wing found that the figure at his feet had vanished. In its place was a pit, only it wasn’t just a pit —
It was an open grave.
Wing gasped. The single voice that had called out to him had erupted into a thunderous demon chorus:
“Merehr!”
Hands clamped down on his shoulders.
No. Wing cried out. No. No!
“Ouch! Wing, hold on, it’s me. It’s me!”
What? Wait, Wing thought. That voice. I know that voice. Don’t I?
“Come on, come out of it.” And then, more softly, the voice said, “Come back.”
The cliff and the pit had vanished. Before him a pinpoint of light had coalesced. Momentarily mesmerized by it, just as Wing reached out to touch it, it exploded. Blinded, Wing flinched as it flew at him, entering his chest and blowing out his back. He let out a sharp cry. A hand caught his arm, dragging him up.
At a distance, he heard the voice again: “It’s me, brother.”
Brother.
Wing blinked and the vision cleared at last. Into his fevered eyes solidified the hazel-gold eyes of Nien.
Wing stared at him in disbelief before dropping back against the headboard, coughing and gulping as if returning from the drowning dead.
“Yeefa, Wing,” his brother said and the bed creaked as Nien sat back. “You’re going to give me heart failure.”
Seeing his brother’s face and hearing his voice was so immense that Wing could not prevent the sob that escaped his throat. Pressing his hands against his eyes, he gasped and shuddered.
Pushing at the covers, struggling to free himself from the tangle of sheets, Wing swung his legs over the edge of the bed. There, leaning head in hands, he breathed for a time, focused on the solid, steady presence of Nien at his side.
Nien, Wing thought. You saved me. Again.
Nien laid a hand on Wing’s bare shoulder. “The nightmare again?” he asked.
Wing had no idea what to say. It wasn’t just a nightmare. He hoped it wasn’t a vision. And surely, he didn’t know how to explain it. So, he didn’t answer. He never had.
Wrung, he slumped back to the bed. But this time as darkness came in to claim him, he felt Nien following him under, coming to stand between him and the void.
Standing, Nien went into the kitchen and filled a mug of water for Wing in case he awoke again.
Back in their room, he placed the mug down, watching Wing when Jake, their little brother who slept at the other side of the large back room, said sleepily: “Nien?”
“It’s all right, Jake,” Nien whispered just loud enough for Jake to hear.
Jake sat up.
Nien could just see the whites of his little brother’s eyes shift from him to Wing.
“Is it Wing?” he asked.
Nien’s chest rose and fell heavily. “E’te,” he replied.
A knowing silence passed between Nien and his little brother in the dark.
“Is he all right?” Jake asked.
Nien didn’t feel he could lie. “I don’t know,” he said. “Wish I did.”
“Me, too,” Jake said.
“I’m here. I’ll watch him. You get some sleep.”
“All right,” Jake said, his voice unsure but muffled by a yawn.
As Jake’s bed creaked and settled, Nien continued to stand, gazing down at the moonlit figure of his brother. In the short time it had taken him to get water, Wing had fallen asleep.
Setting the water aside, he checked Wing’s bare shoulder — it was icy to the touch. Tugging as gently as he could, Nien managed to get the heavy quilt out from under Wing’s long legs. Pulling it up and over him, Nien sat carefully on the bed beside him and tucked it in around Wing’s shoulder.
Wing was lying on his side, curled into himself, his skin covered in chills, long limbs quivering.
It had happened before — the dream, the nightmare, whatever it was — and Wing had never said, but Nien could see the toll it was taking on him. Perhaps it was no more than the resolution of unconscious fears inherent in being who their people thought him to be: Merehr, the Leader of Legend, the one seen by seers in the ancient times. Their writings had become the scripture of their people.
These ancient writings said Merehr would be different. And Wing was different, Nien admitted, but that didn’t mean he was the Leader.
Nien sighed and glanced out the window across the long distance of dark grassy fields towards the Village in the glittering distance. The peace outside of that window was so complete, so welcoming, that Nien drew it into the landscape of his own mind, allowing it to soothe the chaos he experienced through his empathic connection with his brother.
It was fitting that they, the eccentric family of Rieeve, should live so far from away from those lights in the distance, from their people. Clearly, if Wing’s nightmares were any indication, trouble enough found them where they were, there was no need to ask for more by living in the middle of it.
Nien had not been the reason why their family lived apart. When he’d come to the Cawutt family, they had already been living at the far end of the valley, the only family that did. The farmstead comprised the big Mesko wood house, the barn, peeiopi coop, corral, and the fields that stretched to the sunsetting tree line. Nor, however, was it because of Wing with his black hair, green eyes, and velvet brown skin.
They lived apart because that was what their father, Joash, had wanted, long before either Wing or Nien had been born. Light-skinned, brown-haired, and hazel-eyed, Joash looked l
ike the rest of their people. That, however, was where the resemblance ended, for their father’s mind was quite different. He longed for silence, for peace, for the quiet and beauty of the open fields. And, as the Mesko Tender, he needed to be near the great trees, the only tree-talker currently living among their people.
Nien caught a brief glance of himself in the mirror over the chest of drawers between his bed and Wing’s. In the dark, his skin shimmered like moonlight on water, his gold-flaked, hazel brown eyes looking troubled.
He’d been found by their father, Joash Cawutt, as a small boy, abandoned on the edge of the Cawutt family fields. Near as they could tell, Nien had been close to the same age as the Cawutt’s own little boy at the time, Wing.
He and Wing had taken to each other in a way that suggested they might have shared not only the same womb but the same soul.
Joash and Reean Cawutt had chosen the day they’d found him as his birthday. There would be no returning him to wherever he came from — no outsiders were welcome in Rieeve and no one ever left. Which was why, they assumed, Nien’s mother had left him here.
Taking in his brother once more, Nien decided to see what sleep he could get in the little night that was left. He had Cant training in the morning and was still sore from yesterday’s exercises.
Crawling back into bed, Nien was not surprised when the sleep he desired would not come.
Tomorrow could prove to be a very long day.
Chapter 2
Rieeve
W oven into a single braid, Wing’s long black hair thumped against his back in a rhythmic pattern that matched the gait of his horse. Thankfully, morning had come and he, his brother, and their father were on their way into the Village.
Spinning retrograde, Wing watched as their planet’s sun rose in the west, cresting over the rugged peaks of the Ti Mountain range and mighty Llow Peak. The surface of the planet itself lay out in three massive continental plates circling the middle and two great oceans top and bottom. Rumour had it that some few ships sailed between these continents, but rare was it for any of their wayfarers to set foot beyond the borders of the Len’ta continent, for Len’ta was vastly non-negotiable for the ill-prepared, its mountain ranges so indomitable and lengthy that over the centuries its inner valleys had become ethnically, politically, and theologically distinguished.
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