Shadows of Empyriad (The Empyriad Series Book 1)

by Josi Russell

  “Mushrooms.” Zyn’dri said. She liked the taste of the word almost as much as she’d liked the plants.

  “You girls enjoy your day inside,” Walt said, strapping on his weapon. “I have to go check the Grant Pack. One of the Rangers reported that Snowflake is hurt, and she should be settling in to have pups in a couple of months. We need to make sure she’s okay.”

  Later that day, with more snow falling outside, Zyn'dri lay close to Sylvia. Her long fingers were tangled in the old woman's hair. They'd been talking about Zyn'dri's mother, and for the first time since that moment when they brought her mother into the Trisne Rooth, the thought of her didn't hurt.

  They talked about life on Empyriad, and about being Stracahn.

  At one point, Sylvia's eyebrows drew together in what Zyn'dri had learned was a questioning look. "Tell me about being Avowed," Sylvia said. "I don't know very much about that."

  Zyn'dri thought a moment. "It's special, I guess." She said, "You get a calling, and the Avowed come to tell you about it. When you're called, you have a special connection to the Allbeings, and you can use it to help others."

  Sylvia nodded. "How do you get a calling?"

  "The winds reveal it to the First Avowed." Zyn'dri said. "His name is Meir."

  "Do you like him?" Sylvia asked, her eyes searching Zyn'dri's face.

  "Yes. He's very kind." Zyn'dri hesitated, "But I did make him angry once."

  Sylvia showed surprise on her face. "How?"

  Zyn'dri paused. She didn't want to tell Sylvia. "I don't want to say." She said.

  Sylvia slipped a hand up to Zin'dri's cheek. It was a warm hand, and so soft. "Zyn'dri, I'm here to take care of you. It will be easier to do that if you understand that you can tell me anything."

  Zyn'dri wanted to say and didn't want to. She tried not to speak, but, like always, the truth rushed out. "I don't want you to be disappointed in me." She said.

  "That's not going to happen." Sylvia waited, and Zyn'dri looked deep into the old woman's pale blue eyes.

  Zyn'dri's voice was very quiet. "I refused my calling." She waited to see the disapproving look that she expected to follow that revelation, but it didn't come. She went on. "I don't want to be Avowed. I don't want to go and live in the Edifice and be trained. I don't want to be alone!" She heard her voice, high and desperate, and felt Sylvia sit up quickly, pulling Zyn'dri onto her lap and holding her close.

  "Walt and I are right here. You don't have to be alone."

  Zyn'dri felt safe and warm. She tucked her head close to Sylvia's chest and pulled her knees up. Sylvia wrapped her arms around the girl. "I was called, and I told them no."

  "That's okay," Sylvia said.

  "I was the youngest ever to be called, except the Ola’an."

  "There's plenty of time for a calling," Sylvia said. This was not something Zyn'dri had ever considered. Could she choose to accept her calling sometime in the future? She had thought that once it was declined it was final. But Meir and the others had still treated her as if she was called. They had given her the small Avowed robes. They had greeted her with "Allandar," the greeting of the Avowed, when they had seen her.

  But she did not want to be Avowed, and she would not be. "I will not be Avowed," she said, her words falling like stones.

  She felt Sylvia's light fingers, stroking her hair. "You don't have to be." She said.

  37

  Walt had been off for a few days taking care of Zyn’dri. As he moved across the snowdrifts, he saw something ugly—a scar in the valley. There, ringing the village, was a thick alloy fence. The village was accessible only from the checkpoint on the road. Now there were barriers within barriers. The park had been fortified against encroachment from the outside, and now from the inside as well.

  “Nothing has changed,” Karson explained over the radio. “Stracahn will still be allowed to leave the Villages with permits if they state why they are leaving and where they are going. We just don’t want them wandering off and freezing, or starting to hunt the park animals.”

  “Why would they do that?” Walt asked, annoyed.

  “I think it’s a good preemptive move,” Karson said. “When people are cold and hungry, they do desperate things.”

  “Then we shouldn’t be letting them get cold and hungry.”

  “Look, Walt, things in the village are not great. The Quickforms aren’t meant for this kind of weather, and the Stracahn aren’t feeling very well. I need to know where they all are at all times. We had an old woman wander off while you were away and she froze down by the river.”

  The words hit Walt hard. He didn’t have anything more to say. The specter of the Stracahn’s first illness and the bodies it left in its wake rose before him. Perhaps the fence was necessary. He pulled the spider into the parking lot and dropped it into spraddle mode, the center cab low to the ground and the legs spread wide around it. This made it easy to hop down out of and allowed him to avoid the rungs of the entrance ladder, which were slick with ice buildup from the journey.

  He saw it was bad when he entered the dining tent. The Stracahn children sat and lay scattered throughout the room, listless and apathetic. Even Pavela was seated at the front, leaning heavily on the table as she talked about the sixty-two continents of Empyriad.

  “They are the laziest bunch of beings I have ever seen.” Ranger Sarr, a wiry woman with short-cropped brown hair, spoke from behind him.

  Walt looked at her. “It’s obvious that they’re ill.”

  “Only because they lay around and don’t do anything all day.” She countered. “It would probably cheer them up if they would get up and work.”

  “What do you expect them to be doing? There’s no work for them. On Empyriad they wove remarkable grass tapestries, but we won’t let them gather anything. They can’t hike, because they can’t leave the village. We won’t let them explore. We’ve forced them into this stagnant existence, and who knows how long it will go on?”

  She looked at him with disgust. “I don’t expect you to see them as they are. Not with one of them living in your house.”

  “I don’t expect you to see them as they are without one living in your house.” Walt countered.

  Crossing the village back to the Ranger’s hut, Walt heard strained voices. He turned to see two of the Avowed making their slow way along the drifted pathway. They turned and followed the trail down toward the river. Walt knew that the new fence would soon confront them. It embarrassed him. He thought maybe he could try to explain it to them, make it seem less like they were being caged and more like they were being protected like Karson had suggested. He hurried after the two figures.

  They were obviously Allies, a man in the bright orange robes of a Mentor, and a woman wearing the dark blue robes of an Observer.

  Walt crossed the Village Commons, overhearing more of their conversation as he tried to catch up to them.

  “This is unacceptable. We must be reassigned.” She was saying as they slipped down a side path between two huts. Walt wondered if they were lost. Sometimes, when Avowed came from the Vault at Old Faithful to the Hayden Valley Village for the first time, they got lost in the maze of huts.

  “O’neva,” the Mentor replied, “we can talk to Meir.”

  Walt saw the Observer, O’neva, catch the Mentor’s hand. The two stopped and looked at each other a long moment. Walt slowed, sensing, suddenly, that he may be intruding.

  “Wan-seh,” she said, gazing at him, “I don’t want to be your Ally. I want to be your wife.”

  Wan-seh’s voice was stern and unemotional. “That would be selfish of both of us. We can do much good for our people as Allies.”

  Though her expression was still calm and her voice still even, Walt saw the desperate way she grasped Wan-seh’s sleeve. He saw her hand trembling, and wondered if it was the mysterious illness or if it was the bitter cold. “Please.” She said. “Wan-seh, please. The bonding tay’ren has been initiated. We have to complete it. You taught me yourself the
dangers of leaving a tay’ren incomplete.”

  The Mentor took her wrist gently and pulled his sleeve from her grip. “There will come a time when you are no longer my Observer, and we can continue what we began. But a Mentor and an Observer cannot be involved in that way. If we continue now, it is a rejection of our callings. I will not do that, and I will not allow you to, either.”

  Walt felt as if he had heard too much. He shouldn’t have followed them. But it was too late now. He needed to let them know he was there. He cleared his throat.

  “Hi, there!” He said, trying to make his voice light. The Allies turned, stepping unconsciously away from each other. “Can I help you find something?” Walt asked.

  O’neva’s eyes were the color of sandstone. Her skin was dark umber, and its iridescent sheen caught the light from the snowdrifts. She looked frail as if she might take flight with the next winter gust and tumble away over the drifts of Hayden Valley. Walt saw how Wan-seh’s eyes lingered on her, concerned, for an instant before the Mentor turned to him and spoke.

  Wan-seh’s skin shone pale green. His eyes were as deep blue as the night sky. He seemed perfectly composed. “We are looking for the school.”

  Walt gestured. “No problem. It’s back this way.”

  The Avowed came toward him, and he noticed that O’neva moved as if in pain. “Do you need to rest?” he asked her.

  She shook her head. “I have been resting for many days. My Ally has cared for me well, but I am not getting any better.”

  “Do you mind telling me what you are feeling?”

  “Weary.” She said, “and a deep pain in my bones.” They were the same symptoms that had been bothering Zyn’dri.

  “I’ll take you to the school. We’ll get you something to eat.”

  It wasn’t yet time for lunch, and the Rangers in the kitchen looked at Walt as if he were a raccoon in the trash when he went into the cooler to find something for the Avowed to snack on. The crates of liver were still there. Walt suspected that those generous donations would be utilized at some point to get the wolves in the Grant pack through the winter. Who else was going to eat that stuff?

  He found a jar of huckleberry jam and pulled a fresh loaf of acorn bread from the shelves. He took them out to the table where the Avowed were sitting. They looked at him gratefully as they ate, but Walt suspected any energy they got from it would be temporary. Whatever this was, it was more than mere hunger.

  “What brings you to Hayden Valley?” he asked.

  Wan-seh replied, “We were sent to evaluate the number of Stracahn stricken with this illness.”

  The mention of it made Walt’s heart skip. Zyn’dri had to get better. She had lain, listless, in her bed for days, barely finding enough energy to talk to Sylvia when she lay beside her.

  As if he could tell what Walt was thinking, Wan-seh asked, “how is Zyn’dri? Has she been afflicted?”

  Walt told him about the last few days. Wan-seh leaned forward, his eyes searching Walt’s face. “I am sorry. I can see your great affection for her.”

  Walt couldn’t help but glance toward O’neva. “It’s hard to watch the ones you love suffer.” Though Wan-seh didn’t show any of the usual human signs that he was worried, Walt sensed in him a deep empathy. A shadow of fear played behind the Mentor’s eyes.

  “We must find a cure.”

  Walt spent what was left of the morning clearing snow off the roofs of the Quickforms. They were not made for these conditions, and one had already caved in under the new weight.

  He was warming up in the Ranger hut that afternoon when Sylvia hailed him on the radio. Walt was instantly afraid.

  “What is it, Syl?”

  “It’s Zyn’dri.”

  “Is she worse?” Walt was already walking toward the door.

  “No. She’s better! Much better!” Walt heard Zyn’dri singing in the background.

  Walt put a hand to his head. “What? Is the sickness breaking? Do you think it’s just run its course?” he asked.

  Sylvia was quiet so long that he thought he’d lost the connection. “This is going to sound crazy, but . . . I think it’s the morels.”

  Walt was quiet for a moment. “The mushrooms?”

  “Right! I cooked up some more, and she ate all of them. And you know the catfish you brought home? She couldn’t get enough of it, either. I hate to prove you right, but there may be some good in those ugly things after all. She ate them for lunch and now she is bouncing off the walls.”

  Walt grinned. “I told you those would come in handy.” He glanced up, and Nichols, who was supervisor on duty today, was eyeing him. “I’d better go, Honey,” he said. “I’m glad to hear she’s doing better.” He watched through the window of the Ranger hut as the Stracahn children left school and slogged across the beaten snow paths to their huts. Even though Zyn’dri was feeling better, he was glad that she wasn’t out in the cold now.

  Nichols was watching, too. He gestured at the village. “This place is starting to become even more of an eyesore than it was when we first put it up.”

  Walt looked out. In the last six months, after the integration had been postponed, the Stracahn had begun to settle in. They had made shades out of blankets stretched on poles by their doors. They had dug fire pits and ringed them with stones so they could sit around and talk. The original, orderly arrangement of the Quickform huts was broken by newly-built add-ons and passageways between them. The new construction was haphazard, made mostly of the sides of crates, blankets, and even meal trays stolen from the dining hut.

  It did look rough, but Walt couldn’t blame them. They were living here, after all.

  “What’s the matter Nichols,” he asked, trying to get a smile out of the serious young Ranger, “worried about property values? Afraid of what the neighbors might think?” He was only half joking. What did it matter how the village looked? No one was going to come in the park to see it.

  Nichols scoffed. “I’m more worried what those crates are leeching into the ground, and what keeping the snow from falling on the grassland will mean next Spring.”

  Walt conceded. He had a point. But before he could come up with a response, Nichols was on the radio talking to Karson. Within minutes, he had the director’s permission to instruct the Stracahn to dismantle their additions and take the village back to its original arrangement.

  Nichols was triumphant, and he headed for the closest hut to let them know. “Come give me some backup.” He barked at Walt. Walt followed reluctantly.

  "You can't build on like this."

  The frozen ground was slick beneath Walt's boots as he stood listening to Nichols try to reason with a solemn Stracahn woman whose hair was the color of sunsets.

  "Where shall I put all the children, then?" She asked, gesturing to the seven or eight little Stracahn that moved in and out of the hut like honeybees.

  "You're going to have to get rid of some of them," Nichols said, and the sound of it turned Walt's stomach. "These huts are only made for four occupants."

  "We have created spaces for all of them."

  Walt ran his eyes over the chaotic lean-to that stretched from the side of the neat round hut like a broken wing. It was made, mostly, of shipping crates and lunch trays from the dining hut. As he leaned through the doorway to get a better look at it from the inside, the Stracahn woman grabbed his arm.

  "Come in. Come and see." She led him to the makeshift doorway that they'd created by taking out one of the narrow panels from the side of the Quickform. The lean-to stretched before him. It was lined with blankets. He could see dried grass, from the surrounding Hayden Valley, no doubt, stuffed between the blankets and the outer wall of crates. "See?" she went on, "it's dry and warm. It's a place for them."

  Nichols pushed in front of Walt and reached in, tearing a handful of the grass from the wall. He held it up accusingly.

  "Where did you get this?" His arm shook with anger.

  The Stracahn woman bowed her head. "We had to keep the
m warm."

  “This is why we had to put up the fence.” Ranger Nichols spat every word out hard. "You don't have to keep them at all. They are not your children. They have been assigned huts of their own. They will stay there. We'll be here in the morning to tear this out."

  “Please,” she said, softly, “they need a home with a mother in it, and with a father. It’s not the same when they’re all by themselves. It’s not a home.”

  Nichols leaned forward. “You’re going to have to adapt.” He said. He turned around, and Walt tried not to look at the woman, or the children, as they left.

  Walt waited until they were back in the checkpoint building to speak.

  "I'm not sure that's necessary," he said carefully.

  Nichols spun to face him. "I'm not sure it's your call."

  Walt held up a hand. "You're right. But she's looking after orphaned kids. I don't think we should punish her for that."

  "Oh, I'm not." Nichols' voice trembled. "The punishment is for what she—and all of them—are doing to the park."

  Walt had had enough. “The park,” he said, “can take care of itself.”

  “That’s right.” Nichols growled, “as long as we don’t get in its way with our ‘humanitarian efforts.’”

  “You sound as if you want them to die out there.”

  Nichols turned away from the village. Walt followed his gaze, out of the hut, beyond the spraddled spider, and across the polished knolls of Hayden Valley. The snow lay smooth and unbroken as far as they could see, rising and falling like waves. Nichols didn’t respond.

  38

  Walt waded through the snow to the mushroom cultivation shed. It was a long, flat room built into the side of a hill several hundred yards from the Ranger housing. Inside, trays of mushrooms lined long shelves that stretched the length of the room into the hillside. Zyn’dri’s appetite for the things was voracious. And there were plenty here, growing individually and in squarish clumps in soil specially prepared here in Yellowstone. It was a Ranger, in fact, about sixty years ago, when the morel was hunted to near extinction, who figured out a three-step process for nearly perfect propagation. The secret was in the soil. Walt didn’t do much except harvest and eat them, but he always took the time to thank the Rangers who now kept the crop producing strong.