Passages

by Passages (epub)

  Lidreth nodded. “Got any questions?”

  Kero shook her head.

  “Not even about the food?” Lidreth grinned.

  “You’ve got a cook and staff,” Kero pointed out. “They can get fired if they mess up too often. Not a lot of other jobs out here, so that’s incentive not to burn the food.”

  Lidreth clapped her on the back. Hard. “I like you,” the merc proclaimed. “So I’m gonna warn you. You’re the only new recruit, so you’re gonna get the scut work, like cleaning the common room. If one of us says you’re to do something, as long as you don’t have other orders, you do it. That’s just how it is. You dropped Hadrick, so you can bet he’ll pile his share on you. That’s how it is too. It’ll keep up till Captain or Training Sergeant Drall says stop.”

  Great. Kero resigned herself to days of drudgery until her fellow Skybolts got tired of teasing the new recruit. Look at it as exercise, she told herself. It can’t keep up forever.

  * * *

  * * *

  A fortnight later, she was reconsidering that thought. And, indeed, reconsidering the idea of staying with the Skybolts at all. She found herself in a constant battle with her temper except when she was in the women’s barrack room or on the drill field; as a consequence, she was spending as much time as she could in drilling.

  Not that most of them were bad—most of them weren’t; they’d send her off on random errands for no good reason, and often for no purpose, but it was good-natured and not all that frequent. Certainly no more than once or twice every couple of days.

  But Hadrick! The man seemed determined to make her life a pure misery. And the worst of it was, he was so clever about it that none of the others ever caught him at it. Say she’d been set to sweep the common room; whoever’s turn it was to do it would remind her that for now, she was the Skybolts’ dogsbody and would set her to it. And that was all well and good, but the moment she’d put the broom away, she’d come back to a right mess, and no one around except Hadrick, lounging in a corner and smirking. And it was all to do over again, and not just once, mind, but as many times as it took before someone else came in and put a stop to his fun. He’d “accidentally” bump into her at meals with the intent of spilling her food or putting her face into it. She’d go to saddle up Hellsbane for a drill or exercise to discover the reins had been tied into intricate knots; she’d taken to going out to the stable early just to have the time to get whatever mischief had been done undone before there was an inspection or drill.

  Then there were the pranks she was sure were him but couldn’t catch him at—like finding her ale had been salted or her tea had been interfered with. Fortunately her grandmother had taught her how to tell by taste when things were in her food or drinks that had no right to be there, so whatever the latter had been intended to accomplish had been thwarted. But her temper, never all that certain, was fraying fast.

  Tonight that temper was close to breaking after finding her ale salted again, and although it was nowhere near as warm and comfortable as the common room, she retreated to the women’s barracks to oil her leathers and brood.

  This nonsense was exhausting. She’d never worked so hard in her life. She’d never had to control her temper so much; fighting in barracks was forbidden, and much as she wanted to beat the goddess-loving crap out of Hadrick and wipe that smug smirk off his face with the floor, she knew what that would get her. A stay in the brig—

  —which might be a relief at this point.

  But the rest of the punishment for an altercation would be to have her pay docked and paid to Hadrick.

  No. Absolutely not.

  She wasn’t the only one having second thoughts about staying.

  Every time she laid her head down at night, Need would grumble distantly at her, and she knew why. Why are you allowing yourself to be treated this way? And why was she? It made no sense. What would Tarma have done in this situation?

  Wiped the floor with him—

  Maybe.

  It wasn’t as if he had hurt her in any way. No, it was just harassment. Constant harassment. Harassment that wasn’t doing her any actual harm but was definitely rubbing her temper raw.

  Not that my temper is all that good, she admitted, and even though the temptation was great to just walk away and find some solo jobs or even another company—well there was no guarantee that she wouldn’t encounter someone else just like Hadrick in the next place, now, was there?

  I . . . have no idea. She’d never had much to do with fighters, or fighting, until she’d been forced into riding to the rescue of her brand-new sister-in-law because there was no one in the keep left standing. Had everyone else here been sure they wanted to be warriors all their lives? Or had they just fallen into it—not exactly the way she had, but because parents had been fighters, or because it was the only way for someone born poor to get out of being a farmhand all their life?

  Gah, I’m thinking too much. She decided that for once she’d go down to the tavern for a couple of drinks of good strong beer to get the taste of that salted ale out of the back of her throat.

  She unlocked her chest, got a few coins, and bundled herself up in her coat. She thought about taking Need, and decided against it. There was always the chance the sword would decide to have another mental wrestling match with her if she put it on, and she definitely was not in the mood.

  The tavern was surprisingly full—full enough so that she spotted Hadrick before he spotted her, and she was able to get her beer and maneuver around the place to keep his back to her while she found a seat, a lone stool no one else seemed to want, against the wall and behind the table he was at, half-sheltered behind a support pillar for the roof.

  Hadrick was gambling with three men who weren’t Skybolts. They didn’t look like freelance mercs either, which meant they were either travelers or locals. She sipped her beer and watched, for once finding herself in the position of seeing without being seen. Lidreth and two other Skybolts were watching the game, standing behind two of the strangers.

  And it wasn’t long before Kero realized he was cheating.

  It was a complicated game involving dice and moving pegs on a board. There were two dice, and every time it was his turn to throw, he palmed a die of his own in and out again, restoring the original before passing it on to the next man. The advantage was slight, but it was just enough for him to keep winning.

  Her temper, already fraying, came within a hair of snapping. Well, that certainly explained how he was salting her drinks and pulling all those other tricks and getting away with it—he had first-class levels of sleight of hand, and if she hadn’t been looking at him from the angle she was, she’d never have seen it.

  And she was just about to rise up and scream out her accusation, giving vent to all her frustration and anger, when with one last supreme effort, she throttled it all back down. First, she’d have to catch him when the loaded die was on the table, because someone as good as he was could make the damned thing disappear, and there’d be no proof. Keep your temper, she told herself. And she kept it throttled down—but it might have been the hardest thing she’d ever done since she’d gone to study with her grandmother and Tarma.

  And the next several passes gave her no opportunity. For some reason, he didn’t bring the die out. Maybe because he was far enough ahead he didn’t feel he needed the edge.

  But she kept her eyes on the dice so closely that on the third pass she realized something else.

  The man next to Hadrick was cheating too.

  He wasn’t quite as good as Hadrick, and unlike Hadrick, he always returned what was probably a loaded die into the same pocket. And in the same moment that she realized that, Hadrick slammed the man’s hand down on his crooked die before he could switch it out again.

  “Bleeding cheat!” Hadrick roared. “Gotchu!”

  And as he jumped to his feet, he dropped his loaded die i
nto his belt-pouch.

  His opponent leaped to his feet, but before either of them could do anything more, Kero jumped in between them and pinned both their hands to the table.

  “He might be cheating,” she shouted, “but so are you, Hadrick!” She caught Lidreth’s eye. “Check his belt-pouch—he just dropped the loaded die in there that he’s been using all night.”

  The two men froze, perhaps because they were surrounded by a room full of people, as Lidreth came around to Kero’s side of the table and fished in Hadrick’s pouch, coming up with the telltale die, which she held up, then rolled. “Six,” she proclaimed, then rolled it twice more, just to verify it would come up six each time.

  Two Skybolts pinned Hadrick’s arms behind him; two locals did the same with the stranger. Lidreth scooped the stranger’s die off the table and rolled it to confirm that it, too, was loaded. Then she looked at Kero.

  “Well?” she said. “What do we do with ’em? Throw ’em both to the dogs?” And she nodded at the crowd, who looked perfectly prepared to beat both of the cheaters to a pulp.

  “Don’t look to us to back you, either,” said one of the Skybolts holding Hadrick’s arms. “You brought this on yourself.”

  Hadrick said nothing. And Kero thought about the last fortnight, and all the grief he’d heaped on her, and her anger flared—but then it died.

  “Take Hadrick to Twoblades,” she growled. “And turn this one over to the keeper.” And she’d have said something more, but the silence in the tavern was broken by someone clapping, slowly.

  The crowd divided to let Lerryn Twoblades himself through, still applauding. Kero gaped at him, as the people holding Hadrick and the stranger dropped the captives’ arms and let them go.

  “Well done, recruit,” the leader of the Skybolts said. “Good answer. And good job of keeping your anger under control while Hadrick plagued you. I thought for certain you’d have snapped long before this. Most people do.”

  “This—was all a test?” Kero shook her head numbly. “Do you do this to everyone?”

  “Everyone—well, not the little show of cheating. We save that for people who pass the temper test,” Lidreth admitted. “Those, we give a chance for revenge. The whole village was in on this part.”

  “But—” she was going to ask why, but then she realized what the answer was. Because Twoblades required that his people be able to work together no matter what was going on off the battlefield. People who couldn’t control their tempers couldn’t do that. Neither could people who plotted revenge over grievances. Hadrick watched her face closely and rubbed the back of his head ruefully.

  “I dunno if you’ll—” he began

  “Apology accepted,” she said. “Provided you sweep the common room and clean the steam bath the next four times my name comes up on the roster.”

  “Hey!” he began to object. “But—”

  “You salted my ale, you put bitters in my tea, and you dropped greenwort into my stew, which would have given me enough wind to drive everyone out of the barracks if I’d eaten it,” she said steadily.

  “I’d’ve thrashed you for that, Hadrick,” Lidreth said, with a scowl. “I might anyway, just because you tried.”

  Hadrick sagged. “Agreed,” he replied, head hanging. “Guess I’m getting off easy. Anything else?”

  “Aye,” she said. “Don’t touch my horse.”

  Somewhere in the back of her mind, she sensed Need sighing with resignation, and smirked.

  The Hawkbrothers’ Ways

  Death and the Vales

  Larry Dixon

  The Tayledras know for a fact that some of them will become spirit-beings in the service of the Star-Eyed after their death. History has shown that such a transformation is most likely if they have been a strong, stable mix of heroic, loving, resourceful, and wise in their life. They also know that these transformations occur in a timeframe they have no control over; a spirit-being could manifest the moment after someone’s death, or a generation hence, but the most important takeaway is this: A Hawkbrother who is driven to be effective in improving the world while alive wants to keep doing so after their mortal death.

  It is also understood by every worshiper that a prayer to the Star-Eyed is not actually meant to go directly to the Star-Eyed but rather to those who act in Her interest. This is encouraging to those who wish to be in Her service after death—just because you’re dead, that doesn’t mean the action stops. There have also been instances of servants of entirely different deities responding to a plea, a number that has sharply increased in recent years, concurrent with the first stirrings of the Mage Storms.

  Along with this is the simple acceptance that once someone is gone from the material world, who and what they become will be altered in ways beyond a native Velgarthian’s capacity to fully understand, akin to a small cup being expected to hold a lake. So the Hawkbrothers embrace what they know of a person in the material world and make the most of that.

  Hawkbrothers understand that matter, and life itself, exists at many sizes relative to themselves. They understand germ theory in a particular way. Life forms can be found living on or in other life forms, from such examples as primary predators consuming their prey, to parasites that thrive on the skin and in bowels. Feather mites are the tiniest things visible to the naked eye, but they certainly have recognizable effects. The concept that life forms exist that are far smaller and far larger than the senses can detect is only logical. Being in the Pelagirs, they also know that such life can manifest in unpredictable ways due to chaotic magic mutations, so the Tayledras have a policy of cremation over burial. Consigned to heat intense enough to vaporize a body, there is no risk of a Pelagirs-altered life form creating havoc from a buried body.

  Additionally, the Hawkbrothers’ spiritual connection to the air is incorporated into this. Hawkbrothers know that the wind carries particles, so by cremating a body, a person’s physical substance is released to the wind, and it will surely be breathed in someday by those who remember them. Indeed, all the Tayledras ancestors are thought to be breathed in as motes in the air, carried aloft on breezes forever until they find a home as part of another Hawkbrother’s breath. This contributes to their society’s long-term cohesion—everyone’s ancestors become a part of everyone.

  Death is still greeted with shock, regret, sadness, and mourning. Every species in the society feels it differently, according to their biochemical and emotional makeup, but the need for comfort is universal. It is not unusual to see occurrences such as a dyheli embraced by a human scout while their Bondbird preens sympathetically at their hair, or a few hertasi appearing long enough to leave blankets and refreshments, squeeze the scout’s hand, and then vanish again.

  Beneath the ground level of a Vale, where the Heartstone, gardens, and workspaces are, the immense complexity of the Vale’s support systems and hertasi civilization is centered around the colossal heat-sink structure in which the Heartstone’s flares are grounded. Each shell around it serves multiple purposes, from glassmaking furnaces and baking ovens to forges, hot water sources, and thermal-based ventilation blowers. Under a Vale, the passages and rooms are large enough for even a gryphon or Companion to walk, and every Vale has at least one beautifully ornate, brightly lit funereal chamber.

  Funeral proceedings occur every three days. When recovering a physical body is possible, it is considered respectful to do so, unless it would result in great harm to attempt it. All bodies, from beloved animals to friends, from dyheli, tervardi, kyree, gryphon species and more, are prepared in adjacent rooms. Hertasi and, occasionally, human ascetics engage in thorough and respectful removal of all artifacts and any body parts that are desired by others, such as a gryphon wanting their fallen friend’s crestfeathers or, more practically, primary feathers being harvested for reuse to replace others’ broken ones. The bodies are wrapped in rough blankets made by students. This practice not only g
ives students practice in weaving but also helps them feel connected to the cycle of life and death and the continuum of their craft, knowing that their own bodies will be wrapped by blankets made by future students. Perfumed, wide leaves are then tied with twine atop these shrouds in a decorative pattern.

  A funereal chamber can hold many people, but it is not considered rude if a person is unable to attend in person. The tasks of a Hawkbrother are many, and death seldom occurs at a convenient time, so this is reconciled. Beaded ropes representing those who could not be present are hung on stands bearing long wind chimes.

  The shrouded bodies are arranged on simple wooden rafts, which are hoisted by staged counterweights onto large carts. All of the machinery of the funeral chamber is beautifully ornate, silent-smooth, and perfectly maintained. Hertasi clad in the layered garb of priests operate the devices in a dance of graceful progression, not a crude throwing of levers. The carts, bearing their burdens, are drawn slowly to the multiple doors of the ovens.

  The hertasi engage in a final test of the doors that lead into the ultimate cremation oven, the heat chamber below the Heartstone itself. An unmistakable deep vibration, akin to a huge drum being struck, is the indication that the last door has tested as operational. This is the cue for these traditional words to be spoken by all the attendees on either side of the bodies’ path to the first door. It is begun by a hertasi priest on the eastern side and spoken in a call/reply between both sides, to form the complete chant.

  “This is the heaviest weight,

  But I am strong, and I bear it.

  This is the most solemn part of their story,

  But while we live, their story will be known.

  This is the emptiest I feel,

  But that feeling is not for myself.

  They are a traveler beyond us,