by Anna Silver
An Otherborn Novelette
By Anna Silver
Copyright © 2014 by Anna Silver
Smashwords Edition
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written consent of the author/publisher, except in the case of brief quotations in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. It is licensed for your enjoyment only and may not be resold or given away. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead) or events is coincidental.
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Chapter 1
Dream Brave
Anya couldn't tell anyone where she was going. Not because she didn't want to, but because it was impossible to say. She was the only Traveler in her tribe, the Si'dah, and her own mentor had been dead and gone now for too many years. No one else would have the capacity to understand. No one else had her same colorless eyes, solid black from lid to lid. Eyes that could hunt in the darkness and resist the light. Eyes that could penetrate the Astral, search the planes, and bring back what would keep her people safe and prosperous for another season.
She gathered her few possessions and tried not to think about all she would be giving up. Her dark feathered cloak, a mark of honor, had to be rolled up carefully. The feathers glinted purple and indigo in the light of her small hut fire. She took her time and great care in securing it, making sure it was tucked safely in the bottom of the pack. It would be too big for the small girl of course, but in time she would grow into it as Anya had. And she would have need of it when Anya wouldn't anymore.
Atop this she added a few tokens that had been her peace and security when she was first learning to walk the dreams. A string of jet beads, the holy color like her eyes. A hand-knapped blade in glassy white stone which could never be allowed to cut flesh. Her resin pot and several pouches of prized powders, the smoke of which protected her when she left her body to walk the Astral planes. The child would need all of these…eventually.
In her heart, she regretted that she wouldn't be there to teach the girl as her own mentor had taught her. She would not stay the girl through her first journey into the dream space. She would not be able to quell her fears, or even be certain that Dyna was worthy of the task. Somehow, all that Anya's mentor had carefully instilled in her, Dyna would have to learn on her own. And if she failed? Well, Anya preferred not to think of that. She could not go if she truly believed she was leaving her people blind.
The sound of whoops and hollers outside caught her ear, and Anya moved to the door of her hut, pushing the curtain back just enough to peer out into the gathering dusk. The hunting party was massed at the center of their communal lands preparing to storm out into the night. Anya smiled at the sight, at the victory already drawn on their faces. They would reach their kill, of that she was certain. Only last night she had performed the rites and ventured into the Lowplane where the creature's spirit was waiting. As they always did, it showed her the place of its death and how to strike to incur the swiftest kill. She gave her thanks and blessing for the animal's passage back into the spirit world. It was an even trade, and one she made often to keep her people fed. They might suffer for a brief while without her, but their hunters were strong and able and would soon find game on their own.
One of the men spied her peeking past the curtain of her hut and trotted over. His rich brown skin was much darker than hers, but then he was a creature of the day and she the night. “Si'dah,” he said with the customary signal of respect, touching his forefingers to his brow for a moment, right between the eyes. “Will you bless me for the hunt this evening before I go?”
She smiled at him, but resisted the urge to blush. Two years her junior and in his prime, Raku was a head taller than her with glossy hair that hung beyond his shoulders. His chest shone like burnished metal in the light of his torch. He was a prized warrior, and one many of the young women of her tribe would happily marry, but for reasons she could not understand, he'd taken a liking to her. “Of course.”
With a sacred word and a brief kiss on his brow, she blessed him for the hunt. “You hardly need it, Raku. You are the fastest runner in the tribe.”
He beamed with pride and a little arrogance. “We all need your blessing, Si'dah. Without it, where would we be?”
His words cut to the quick of her heart, though he couldn't have known the weight of them under the circumstances, but she did well to hide the sting. “In any case, I know the party will be glad of your skill tonight.”
Suddenly, he leaned in, letting his fingers graze the line of her jaw. “May I see you tonight? After?” he whispered.
Anya sighed. In truth, taking Raku into her bed would have been satisfying, but love was forbidden to the Si'dah. Her heart and body must be pure. Though it had not stopped her from loving another, a man not of her tribe or her world. A man she'd met in the Astral. A Traveler like herself. Her heart thrilled at the thought of him, Roanyk, but she quickly pushed it away.
“Raku,” Si'dah began, seeing his pride falter at the tone of her voice. “You know I cannot.”
He frowned and glanced down at his hands. “We'll see.” Then he took off after the tail of the hunting party as it wound its way through the far end of their gathering of huts and made for the forest.
Anya dropped the flap of fabric and pressed her fingers over her eyes. He would be back; she knew it. She couldn't say how she knew such things, she just did. It was part of being a Traveler, this gift of sight. He would come anyway, hoping. And she would not be able to spare him the pain and disappointment of how he would find her. However much she loved another, she still cared for Raku. She hated that he, of all people, would be the one to discover her.
Picking up the pack she'd neatly arranged, Anya slipped out into the fading light and began making her way carefully through the tangle of huts and vegetation that comprised their communal lands. Before dark was fully upon them, before she laid down on her mat for the last time, she needed to be certain that Dyna and her mother received the relics they would need to carry on in her stead. Only one child was ever born at a time bearing the black oval eyes of a Traveler. Before Anya, it had been her mentor, who waited a long time for Anya to come along. She was lucky Dyna had been born so soon after she assumed the role for their tribe. Otherwise, she might not have been able to leave.
She found the hut easily and slipped inside. Dyna was sitting on the floor between her mother's legs, getting her hair re-plaited. Her mother looked up at Anya in surprise.
“Don't get up,” Anya said quickly, before they could interrupt her. “I brought something for the girl, that's all.”
“What is it?” Dyna asked. “Can I see?”
“No,” Anya said. “Not yet.” She set the pack down beside them. “You must keep this hidden until Dyna comes of age. It is the way.”
The girl's mother nodded obediently. No one dared question the word of the Si'dah.
Anya turned to leave, but then turned back. She squatted beside the child and kissed her brow in blessing. “Whatever comes, Dyna, whatever you see or hear, know that I am always with you in spirit.”
Dyna's dark eyes, shining like beetle hulls, blinked up at her, and the child nodded.
“Dream brave, little one,” Anya added, rising to depart. Feeling the tears spring to her eyes, she turned and left quickly bef
ore they could fall.
Back in her own hut, a twin moon was steadily creeping across the gray skies. Anya dropped the door flap and laid herself on the mat. She made sure her hair was neatly braided, beaded, and arranged long over her shoulders and chest. Carefully, she placed her hands across her abdomen, a womb that would never bear children of its own. A little pang went out to Dyna, who was more her own child than her mother's, but she could not think of Dyna now. She must think of herself. And of Roanyk and of Hantu's world, which needed her more than her own.
If she were completely honest with herself, she would admit that the real reason she was doing this, even considered it, was to be with him, to find a world where they could live together as they were and be free to love one another. But it felt better to pretend that she'd made this decision to honor Hantu and the needs of the world she would wake up in than to confess that she'd done it for herself. A Si'dah had so little that was her own. Hers was a life of perpetual service to the tribe. Was it so wrong for Anya to crave something for herself? Was it so wrong to love him?
Anya swept all this away like ash and cleared her mind for the final journey. In a few hours, Raku would find her lifeless body just as it lay now. Tomorrow, everyone in the tribe would know she had left them. Dyna and her mother would open the pack, despite Anya's warning, and understand what had befallen them. And then, all would go on—without her.
But tonight, Anya was making the most important journey of her life. She was traveling to meet him, Roanyk, in the grove once more. Together, with a few others from the Circle, they would set out for the far shore. They would find the current that poured into Hantu's world in the time he had foreseen, where dreaming was dead and they were the only hope of reviving it. They would each take new hosts and be reborn as another. And she and Roanyk would finally have a life together.
Anya took a breath and whispered, “Al mihte ru, Roanyk.” Then she closed her eyes for the last time.
Chapter 2
Betrayal
Everything about this journey was familiar, as though it were no different than the hundreds of others she'd made over her lifetime. As though it weren't the last. The dark. The light. Both pressed in on her with equal ferocity. It was a welcome weight, a mantle she carried for her people. Soon, she would carry it for another people from a distant world. Would it still be familiar then? Still welcome?
Anya tried not to think about it. All that mattered now lie ahead. Roanyk. He was her true destination. There was no going back. She had not said the rites, had not lit the resins. With enough time, her body would not receive her. She could only move forward. This was what she had wanted—the chance at a life with him. It was why she volunteered when Hantu stood in the midst of their circle and pled his world's case, laying out the details of his risky plan. Her eyes had sought Roanyk's then, where he sat on his own seat of stone, and spoken the words she could not say aloud. I will…if you will.
And his own eyes, cold as sheets of ice, but so full of love, had replied in kind. Only for you.
Anya broke through the light to the Astral and breathed her relief. She had done this countless times since coming of age, but tonight she could not afford to make a mistake. Tonight, if she'd not pushed through or arrived too late, she might have been trapped here, bodiless. She hadn't realized until this moment how tense that possibility made her, how much fear remained.
The Midplane rippled around her in green waves of flowing grass. It liked to greet her this way, verdant and warm. She smiled up at the sky, the feel of light and heat on her skin, but knew there would be no sun there. She was not in the manifest world anymore. She was in the between, the land of dreams. Here nothing made sense or followed the rules of physical existence, and yet the Astral had its own rules. Some she knew. Some she didn't.
Anya moved forward reluctantly. That was the point that stuck in her mind like a thorn. Yes, she was a member of the Circle as her mentor had been. She was chosen, special. They were the most powerful shamans, those of the Astral, the dreamwalkers. But there were things even they didn't know—could not know. The Astral was more than just a place. It lived. It grew. It changed. It was impossible to know in its entirety. It had secrets. What if they were attempting something beyond the bounds of their relationship with this place? What if they were pushing past what the Astral would allow? What if this plan of Hantu's weren't possible? What if the great sacrifice she was making was in vain?
Anya sighed and pressed on. There was nothing to be done for it now. They had to try. In truth, though her heart prompted her to rise that day, to be the first to tell Hantu that she would go and give up her life and her people to find a way into his world so the dreaming could be restored, she truly believed in what they were doing. A world without dreaming, without the Astral to hold it together, was no world at all. The suffering would be on a level beyond her imagination. And if the Astral could lose hold in one world, then theoretically it could weaken and lose hold in them all. What then? A hollow existence. The end of everything.
Up ahead, the trees began to rise from the horizon, sprouting like overgrown weeds. The grove was waiting. Roanyk was waiting. She had arrived. Breathless and suddenly at peace, Anya raced toward it, slipping between the massive trunks like a spirit, her eyes searching restlessly for his.
The entire Circle was not to be in attendance tonight. Only those who'd agreed to make this leap. Hantu faced her, dark and lithe, his face not so unlike her own, though the eyes were telling. And Geode, too. His cat-like features always caught her up short. His kind was very different on the outside, but inside his heart no different, except that it was bigger than most. Even Atel was there, gnarled and steady as an old oak, creaking like so many branches in the wind. But two had not come. Not yet. He was missing.
“Where are they?” Anya asked, sparing no words for greeting.
Hantu took a step in her direction. “They will come, Si'dah. Give them time.”
“Do we have time?” she asked, feeling anxious. Peace had washed over her as she neared the grove, believing Roanyk was waiting behind the familiar trees. But now the peace was lost, replaced with an indescribable unease. If he did not make it…if he didn't come…
She could not afford to think such thoughts. She would have nothing then.
Raku trailed through her mind and she shivered. How easy her life might have been otherwise, if she'd not been born to be the Si'dah. If she'd been born a simple girl of their tribe, a girl raised to motherhood and craftwork, pottery and cooking. She could have married a warrior like Raku, been the envy of every woman in their clan. She could have born sons and lived long and proud on the fat of their communal lands. Even as the Si'dah, she could have taken a lover in secret. Could have felt his strong arms around her in the gray twilight of morning. Could have told him tales of the Astral that made him look on her in awe. It would have been some kind of life. If only she'd never met Roanyk. Never been asked to take her mentor's seat in the Circle. In a way, Roanyk had wrecked everything about her. Her complacency. Her solitude. Her certainty in who she was and the role that had been thrust upon her. And if he didn't show tonight, she would be lost.
Hantu seemed to read the agony of doubt weaving its way through her mind. He neared and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Please, Si'dah. Sit. There is nothing to do now but wait. They will come. I know they will.”
Her eyes met his and she wondered if he could see through their ebony recesses into her clenching heart.
“He will come,” Hantu assured her.
Yes, he could.
Time did not pass in the Astral in the normal way. Whatever sense there was of time here, it was a charade. Something the Astral conjured up to try and make them feel at ease. But tonight, the fleeting swirl of mists overhead, of light passing dark passing light, like the heavens were racing themselves, only made Anya more fearful. She could not sit and wait on her stone like the others. Hantu sat poised and regal. Atel sank roots into the ground and planted himself in pl
ace. Even Geode had found some measure of comfort in his seat at the Circle, but Anya paced like a caged beast among the trees, casting her eyes about for some glimpse that would betray his arrival.
At last, unable to stand it any longer, Geode leapt from his place and joined her at her side. “You are only wearing yourself down. You should rest. Tonight's journey will be hard.”
Her head snapped around, and her eyes bore into his. “I cannot rest.”
“You cannot carry on like this. You will have nothing left for the journey that waits.”
“How much longer?” she whispered low, so the others wouldn't overhear. “We can't wait here forever. Even I know that.”
Geode sighed. “Truly? Not much. I half expected it of Eclipse. Her kind is too tender for such atrocities as Hantu described. But Roanyk is a force in his world. He is powerful. Fear should not have gotten the better of him.”
Anya blinked back the tears lining up at the corners of her black eyes. Maybe it wasn't fear that held him back. Maybe he didn't feel the same about her as she did him. “Love should have brought him here,” she whispered.
Geode put a soft-furred hand in hers. “It still might.”
Anya prayed it would.
A subtle rustling from behind them caused her to spin around, eager longing plainly visible on her face. But it was not the muscular and red-spotted form of Roanyk that emerged from the trees. Instead, the whisper white vision of Eclipse shocked them all as she glided into their presence. Her face was carefully blank, but Anya could sense the tension behind it. And the Astral whistled around her as if sounding an alarm. She had almost decided against this. Something had changed her mind.
Geode left Anya's side to approach the specter of their fifth volunteer. “You came.” He did not try to hide the surprise in his voice.
She nodded and looked toward Hantu. “I—I didn't want to, when the time was upon me. I love my world, my kind. And what you described, it sounds so terrible. I'm not sure I can withstand it. But if the Astral is behind us, we will prevail. And in the end, I knew I couldn't come back here and face it if I'd let you down.”