Strangers from the South: Short Story Collection

1

Out of the dead, the living grow. Ashwyn wandered. Since he was a boy, he was drawn east to the rising sun, with no notion why. Over and over he headed east, only to be pulled back to the west.

He was lean and sinewy, with lilac eyes, olive skin, short black hair, and ears that ended in a point. His people called themselves Albah—the Shining Ones.

The furthest east Ashwyn ever travelled was the southeastern edge of a region called Between the Rivers. He walked all the way to the city, ‘Lights on the River,’ hoping to board a ship which would carry him across the ocean to Bharata. Accompanying him was his friend, Tamir of the City Under the Mountain. Like all his people, the Yakmen dwarf was short, black-bearded, and heavily tattooed.

“It’s fucking hot,” the dwarf said, wiping his forehead across the ‌tattoos depicting two striding stags. He sweated like a pig in the heat, even dampening his braided black beard, and down under his bone lamellar armor. The dwarf had long since foregone his boar-pelt mantle and instead wrapped his head in a linen turban with the loose fabric covering his face.

Ashwyn’s people fell into equilibrium with their environment. He sweated little and narrowed his purple eyes to slits to cut down the glare. Ashwyn was dusty, but comfortable in the glaring desert sun. He wore a desert thobe, an aba and head wrap, with an heirloom sword slung across his back, a quiver of Yakmen-made iron-tipped arrows he carried in a quiver over a shoulder, a steppe-made, laminated, yew-wood recurve bow, and a deer-hide satchel that dangled on his hip. The elf led their pack animal—a donkey named ‘Rusty’—behind him.

“I feel fine,” Ashwyn said to the sweating dwarf.

“Go to hell,” Tamir said.

Ashwyn smirked and added, “Don’t you people stand around forges all day?”
Tamir said, frowning, “We are ‘People of the Vaults,’ where it’s cold, thank you very much, and may I add, go to hell, Albah.”
Ashwyn laughed.

They walked to the large, bronze doors of the city belonging to Wourus, the Rainmaker. Ashwyn stopped and kicked a rock out of his sandals and scratched the donkey on the top of the head.

He said to the dwarf, “You should have changed. This clothing feels wonderful in the heat.”
“Fuck you, elf.”
Ashwyn laughed.

They stood outside the curtain walls of the city ‘Lights on the River’ waiting with other travellers and merchants in a line to gain entry to the center-city. The wealthier lived inside the walls; the city outside the walls comprised mud and fired brick homes with crumbling white mortar and packed roadways. Most of the city-dwellers were human, but occasionally Ashwyn saw someone from his people, or even Yakmen traders like Tamir. The stuffy, hot air smelled of shit, animals, fresh bread, people, and the nearby river, on its way to plunge into the gulf at the bottom of the delta that carried travelers east on the monsoonal winds.

“You’re sure about this trip to the east? I can’t talk you out of it?” Tamir asked, looking up at him.
Ashwyn shook his head slowly and said, “No. I don’t know why, but I want to go east, towards the rising sun.”
“Any more than that?”

“No,” Ashwyn said, shaking his head.

Tamir crossed his arms over his chest and said, frowning, “It's a jungle over there, huge rivers—bigger than that one—mountains that are the highest in the world and covered in blue-white glaciers. Did I mention the jungle?”
“Are you sure you want to go with me?” Ashwyn asked, looking down.

“Why not.” The dwarf said, shrugging.

“Then, we just need to find a ship.”

They waited in line at the gate on a dusty main road lined with merchant stalls selling textiles, clay pottery, animals in cages, and people. Ashwyn leaned over from his place in line and looked out into the brick city inside the walls. The massive stepped-ziggurat at the center towered over everything, and smoke from sacrifices rose above the stepped-pyramid temple in the center. The people walked to and fro; deliveries being made by stooped human labor, donkey, and camel, carrying goods from the north—the endless steppe—the far east, and the west; home to both Ashwyn and Tamir.

The line moved forward, and a guard in bronze-scale armor waved them over, while Tamir stepped up and said to the guard, “We are hiring a ship to go east.”

“Going east. Not sure about that.” the guard said flatly.

Ashwyn handed the guard copper rings and a bar of hack-silver.

The guard smiled, “Be welcome, travellers,” and waved them forward.

The people around them wore loose-fitting, undyed linen, and the blazing sun browned the skin of many working men who wore loincloths, sandals, and turbans; the wealthy and working people alike had black hair ‌and black, kohl-rimmed eyes. The wealthy men, however, wore blue, purple, and saffron, adorning themselves in gold and lapis lazuli, and typically shaved their heads and remained beardless as a sign of purity. They wore kaunakes—flounced skirts tied around the waist and went about bare-chested. There were few women about, but they could be spotted inside the courtyards of homes, peering out of windows, or officiating at the many temples hidden away among the crowded streets.

Occasionally, Ashwyn passed someone who whispered to a companion, ‘Sedu,’ as he passed. In the west, they were Albah, which slurred into Alfar, Ahulph, and Elf. Here they were called Sedu and in the east, Gandharva and Ribhus. The city-dwellers talked about another—the Tzel—the shadow people; kin to the Sedu, but Ashwyn had never met one and had no notion who those mysterious people linked to him were.

They walked to the other side of the city, following limestone paving stones that created a perpetual cloud of dust on the roadway, lined with people from all over the world. At a stable along the main road, Ashwyn stabled Rusty while Tamir unloaded their goods and stored them in the locked warehouse next door, and then they set off to the river shore on the other side of the city. Merchants came out to them as they passed; one sold goats; another sold pottery, while another offered two beat-down slaves who dully considered them as they passed.

They passed the main temple—a large, stepped-ziggurat, walled by glazed blue brick with mosaics across the surface. Frescoes depicting scenes from ancient stories carried out of the south covered the plaster-white outer wall. Ashwyn stopped and considered the depiction of the goddess Ish—the goddess that died every evening and rose again every morning. The figure was a woman with an owl on her shoulder and a swan at her feet, wearing male clothing—an asymmetric, fringed tunic, with a bow in her hand and gray, piercing eyes. Flanking her on either side were her brother and sister; the Sun and Moon.

The pair pushed through the merchants, pilgrims, noblemen, and slaves and found a riverside tavern outside the walls on the other side of the city. The city-proper and patchwork farmland occupied low-canyon shelves irrigated by fired-clay aqueducts further north.

After sitting on the cushions around a rough-plank table, they both ordered beer, which was served in fired-clay bowls, sitting out on a raised platform overlooking the river and the fields beyond, reclining in the shade of palms lining the shelf.

After slurping his bowl, the dwarf said, “I am gonna ask around for any ship captains.”

“Alright, I am going to rest for a moment.”

Tamir rose and walked to a dice game in progress nearest the docks, while Ashwyn closed his eyes and steadied his breathing. When he opened his eyes again, a she-elf with olive skin sat on the other side of the table. Her eyes were dark and kohl-rimmed, and her ears tapered to points like his, but she did not wear Alban robes; instead she wore a long, elegant flounced wrap of blue and amber-colored linen, with rows of tufted wool fringes. She wore a fringed shawl over that and a wide, shaded headdress with a broad band ringed by beaten-gold willow leaves, lapis lazuli, and carnelian, hiding her black hair and kohl-rimmed eyes. Two carnelian and gold earrings in the shape of fans dangled from her ears, and around her neck was a necklace of lapis lazuli and gold.

“To what do I owe the honor, sister?” Ashwyn asked with a cool smile.

“You’re a ranger aren’t you?” She asked, leaning forward.

“I am.”

“From the west?”

“Yes, the World Tree in the west.”
She leaned back, saying, “I see. I am Sumi, a priestess in the cult of Ish.”
Ashwyn shrugged. “We call her Ana. There’s no veena, or eastern clothing in your depictions.”
She smiled, “Her form depends entirely on who is looking.”

He sipped his beer. It was warm, flat, sour, malty, and a bit sweet from the use of date syrup.

He swallowed and said, “There aren’t many Albah this far south that aren’t simply travellers.”
She smiled and shrugged, saying, “And who said I was from the west?” The smile vanished as she leaned forward and said quietly, “I don’t need an Albah, I need a ranger.”

He nodded and asked after sipping his bowl of beer through a hollow reed straw. “How did you know I was here? It’s not like there’s a sign over my head.”

She smiled knowingly and shrugged, saying, “Stormy gray eyes see everything. There’s been several murders recently. A priest and two priestesses.”

He said with quiet disgust, leaning forward, “I resent being moved across someone else's board. You tell her that when you see her.” He sighed, leaned back, and asked, “What can you tell me about the murders?”
“They were found drained of blood, partially dismembered,” she grimaced and thought, saying without looking over, “It was done at night.”

“Can I see the locations? The bodies?”
“What’s left of the bodies are already in the House Made of Clay.” She slid a clay tablet across the table and said, “I presume you understand the Tongue of the Plain.”
“I do.”

He picked the clay tablet with directions inscribed. Not an orderly street address but one that used descriptors. ‘Two hovels on the left, follow the river until you pass a big tree on a hill.’

She gathered her clothing, which jingled as she moved, stood and said, “Meet me there this afternoon. It is unsafe to speak too openly.”

Then she walked off to rejoin her servants.

He sipped his beer and closed eyes once again, thinking through her words, until Tamir sat and asked, “Who the hell was that? She looked Albah.”
“A priestess in the Cult of Ish. I think she may have been an easterner.”
“Curious, there’s rumors of both our peoples still living there. What did she want?”
“Several murders of the priesthood. She wants me to meet her this afternoon.”

He slid the tablet across the table. Tamir gathered up the clay tablet and read it.

He asked without looking up from the tablet, “How the hell did she even know you were here?”
“She insinuated Ana—the goddess.”

Tamir shook his head and sighed. “Everywhere we go it seems someone is working behind things.”

“I agree—multiple parties. What happened with the ship?”

Tamir shook his head. “Any ship leaving, left a month ago when the season ended. Now we have to wait for the monsoonal winds to change direction. We have to wait for the south-wind—some months away.” Tamir shrugged, adding, “We could use the money. You take the job?”
“I will for now, I guess. And you’re right, we could use the money.”
“I’m in.”

They followed the directions to an e-kir—a sacred high place capped with a copse of date-palms. An owl followed them out of the city, circling above and landing on a palm frond above them as they crested the man-made hill. On the hill-top was the ash outline of a fire, betraying where the victim laid prior to the partial cremation, which was surrounded by bare, dusty rock swept of anything living in the shape of a spiral around the raised stone altar made of carved bedrock.

Tamir said, on spotting the spiral-shape left by a stirring wind on the hilltop, “Speaking ring. Who would create it? Why?”
Ashwyn shook his head, “I wish I had answers.”

He checked the ground, examining the faint outlines of footsteps in circles and those belonging to four individuals standing around the body at equidistant points corresponding with the four winds.

“It was a ritual,” Ashwyn said. He pointed to the tracks, adding, “See the tracks?”

Tamir walked over and looked.

Ashwyn knelt in the dust and pointed to brown stains around the site, saying, “Blood, lots and lots of blood before the fire.”

He pointed to drops following in the footsteps of the practitioners.

Tamir looked over at the elf with an arched eyebrow, asking, “What the fuck were these people doing?”

“Ritual has meaning and purpose—it isn’t an impulse,” Ashwyn said, standing and looking over.

The dwarf walked to a jelly-like pile nearby, covered with flies. He picked up a fallen twig and then thrust it into the amber glob and sniffed, “Fruit mead.”

“Why mead?”
“Maybe they were thirsty,” the dwarf said, shrugging.

Ashwyn stood up and pointed at the jelly, saying, “Poison. See all the flies dead around it. Maybe paralyzing?”
“Could be,” the dwarf said, nodding and dropping the twig.

Ashwyn shrugged. “If so, the victim was alive.”
“That’s fucked,” the dwarf said. He asked, looking over, “Who are the victims?”
“A priest and two priestesses from the cult of Ana—sorry Ish. Your people call her Nertha.”

Tamir shook his head, thinking and asking, “I don’t recall any violent rites associated with her—no grudges. She stands apart from the other gods. Do they hold any sort of power? Political? Religious?”

Ashwyn thought about it and said, “A priest or priestess in her cult tends to be a truth-speaker to the ruler like in the West, but beyond that, nothing. Here Ana is the goddess of cycles and order named Ish. We say she creates order, but they have an older interpretation: they say the universe orders itself around her. The Evening Star is associated with her. She’s a shapeshifter who can move across boundaries.”

“Why would they be targets?” Tamir asked.
“I don’t know,” Ashwyn said, standing and looking around. He walked over to the jelly and looked closely, bending down and saying, “Green-blue streaks. Copper or bronze residue?”
Tamir nodded, “A libation vessel. And these trees around us would shield them from view from the city.”

Ashwyn stood and said, looking over, “I suspect a priesthood is involved, but which cult?”

A voice nearby asked, “Find anything?”

Sumi walked into the copse, approaching them from the other side of the hill. She waved her servants away and walked into the clearing with them, holding her hands clasped in front of her.

Ashwyn could not help but note her eyes were not black as he first suspected; instead, they were violet like his, catching the setting sun when she turned her head. And while she spoke Alban, making herself understood by Ashwyn and Tamir, she spoke with an accent he could not place.

Long ago, there were elves and dwarves living across the world. First, the Great Yakmen Reach and mountain communities spread across the vast landscape. The Alban Imperium then emerged, networking the world with its crumbling roads and the ruined watchtowers still seen in some high places. But contact had ceased when the Imperium fell, and as the Alban tide of civilization receded, strange, dark-skinned people migrated north out of the homeland of all thinking animals on two feet. The elves called these people ‘Strangers From the South.’ They called themselves ‘human.’

“Sister, you’re from Bharata? In the east?” Ashwyn asked her.

She smiled and nodded. “I am.”
“Do we still linger there?”
“I left when I was a girl, many, many years ago, so I could not tell you. Of course, we are called Gandharva and Ribhus in Bharata. The sacred tree—Ashvattha—still stood when I was last there. Does the sacred tree still stand in the West?”

“The World Tree stands.” He said, nodding, and then blurted out, “I want to go east.”

He could not say why he did so—it was a longing, an urge, a mandate from the heavens—something.

“Why?” she asked, cocking her head to the side.
“I don’t know.”

“I don’t believe in destiny,” she said quietly, “but the Wheel turns. You may spend your life spiraling into it, but eventually you may land there. To go east, perhaps you must go west once again.”

Tamir cleared his throat and said, “Getting on with the task at hand; we found something.”

She asked the dwarf, “What did you find?”

“We think this was a ritual, there is evidence of a pyre, a paralytic fruit mead held in a libation vessel.”

“Excellent,” she said, smiling.

Ashwyn crossed his arms and asked Sumi, “What can you tell us about his rite?”
“I don’t know,” she said, looking around. “Many rites involve blood-letting, sacrifices are dismembered and then burned.”
“Now, where have I heard that,” Ashwyn said to himself.

Tamir shrugged.

Ashwyn said, looking over at Tamir and Sumi, “Dismemberment—it’s something really, really old.”

She shrugged, “It is just to make burning the sacrifice easier, but there are older stories involving it—some of the oldest. A priest, a god, and a sacrifice—which is then dismembered and the god creates a universe from the body. Typically told as three brothers. I was told as an acolyte it is only a metaphor for the interconnectedness of life and death.”
Tamir pointed to the pyre, “Was the body dismembered? We didn’t see what you collected.”
“Yes,” she said, “They were.”

“What are rites‌, generally?” Ashwyn asked, and then said before they answered, “They are reenactments of important events hoping to recreate whatever it created.”

She shook her head and asked, “To what end?”

“I can’t shake the feeling that something is being reenacted. There’s purpose and meaning here.”

Tamir said, “We figure this all reeks of the priesthood, but we weren’t sure which cult would be involved.”

“I have my suspicions but I don’t want to influence your investigation. You will see for yourself,” she said, waving flies away.

“How’s that?” Ashwyn asked.

Tamir asked Sumi, “When was this murder?”
“You will see,” she said. She added, “Three days ago.”
“Three days,” he said to himself, and then, “What phase was the moon in? Do you know?”
“A full moon.”
He shrugged and said, “They happened at night, maybe it's a moon rite?” He asked, and then asked Sumi, “And the others?”
“The same,” she said.

She clapped, and her servants approached, giving the dwarf and the elf dress clothes.

She said, “You will be my escort to a formal dinner at the palace this evening. I would suggest dressing for the occasion. Try to enjoy yourself, but also listen and watch. The people involved will undoubtedly attend. I must go.”

She walked down the hill, jingling with each step, leaving Tamir and Ashwyn to watch.

Tamir held up the garments, grimacing, “These are not my colors.” He looked at the elf, who was watching the priestess descend, and said, “You like her.”

“What?” Ashwyn said, looking over.

“You fancy her.”
“I do not.”
“You do.”
“Shut your bearded, tattooed mouth.” Ashwyn said, laughing.

Tamir laughed and then said in a serious tone, “You do.”

2

Tamir and Ashwyn found a bathhouse, cleaned, relaxed in the waters, then dressed. Ashwyn shaved his head and trimmed his beard, which had become a black bird's nest growing on his face. Although it was a faux pas, Tamir kept his hair long, but tied it off in a topknot and braided his beard, which he oiled to be polite. They were both given kaunake skirts, tied around their waists. The flounced garments were made to look like leaves layered across the fabric in blue and amber. They were both bare-chested, except for a fringed shawl that was draped across their bodies and over a shoulder, and added kohl to darken the rim around their eyes. Ashwyn received a bronze headband inlaid with turquoise from the Red and Black Lands to the southwest, lapis lazuli from the great mountain chain to the east, and carnelian taken from the mountains bordering the vast steppe to the north. The pair left their belongings at the warehouse near the stables where they quartered their donkey.

Tamir said as they walked out, “Look at me! I’m a barbarian wearing fine dress!”
“Well, you could always shave your head?” Ashwyn said with a smile.

“Go to hell.”

“I am afraid the tattoos won’t scrub out.”
“Watch it, elf!”

They walked to the palace together, and then Ashwyn stopped in the crowded roadway and said, “Dammit! We’re supposed to bring a gift to be polite.”
“We’re going to a palace. What the hell could they possibly want?” Tamir asked, and then stopped and thought about it, and said, “I got it!”

They walked back to the warehouse. Tamir rooted around in his packs and then said, “Ah-ha!” And dropped several globes of finely polished amber into Ashwyn’s hand.
Ashwyn examined the amber from mines far to the north and then looked at the dwarves' bags. “Do you have a bag of rocks? Really? I tell you: Tamir, we’re going east, only pack essentials and you bring a bag of rocks thousands of miles?”

Tamir pointed and furrowed his brow, saying, “They came in handy, didn’t they! I don’t hear you bitching!”

Ashwyn laughed and handed the amber back.

The pair walked out to the road and then set off to the palace together—called locally ‘the Big House.’ The building stood out from the surrounding city, with fifteen foot high walls that were plastered and painted with scenes from stories and myths—of gods, heroes slaying monsters; storm-tossed boats.

Through the gates, the palace opened inward, dominated by a central garden with a portico wrapping around it, illuminated by torches and evening light. Doorways and friezes around the courtyard were framed with mosaic panels made from shell, red limestone, and blue lapis lazuli set into bitumen. Music resolved as they walked through the flowers, cushions, kegs of beer and party-goers, eyeing them briefly and then returning to their conversations.

The reception hall was a rectangular room off the courtyard, illuminated by sesame oil lamps in niches along the walls. High-ranking guests sat on raised benches or wooden stools inlaid with ivory, while reed carpets and woven wool rugs covered the packed-clay floors.

They walked to the back of the hall, to the table set up in front of the raised dais, around which the royal family reclined‌. The pair bowed to the king, whom the locals called ‘the Big Man.’ The king nodded and smiled. Tamir handed a servant nearby the amber. The servant took the amber and walked to the king, handing him the gift. The king wore an ankle-length kaunake with meticulously formed tufts depicting feathers in layers across the surface. A shawl across a shoulder with pearls tied to the fringes, and he was clean-shaven, with kohl-rimmed eyes.

His eyes glittered, and he said with a broad smile, “A kingly gift, Yakman.”
Tamir bowed and said, “Not half so beautiful as your home. Thank you for your hospitality.”
“My home is yours,” the king said.

“Nicely done,” Ashwyn said.

They walked to a keg of beer, picked out fired-clay bowls and dipped them in the thick, sour beer with mash floating on the surface.

Tamir was about to tip the bowl and drink when Ashwyn said, “What are you doing, you barbarian?”
“What?”

Ashwyn tipped his bowl over, spilling a little beer on the floor.

He said, “For the gods.”
“Ah,” Tamir said, tipping his bowl.

Tamir raised the bowl to drink again until Ashwyn said in a hiss, “What are you doing, you savage?”
Tamir furrowed his brow. “What? I am having a sip of beer. I am thirsty!”

“You are so ignorant, western man,” Ashwyn said, rolling his eyes with feigned offense.

He leaned over, grabbed a nearby hollow reed, and used it as a straw to drink.

“What the hell is that?” Tamir asked.

“A straw.”

“Why do they do that?”
“So you don’t drink mash. If you’ll notice, that’s how they all drink,” Ashwyn said, gesturing to the party-goers with his bowl.

Tamir frowned and said, “Ya know what, I am not doing it,” and tipped the bowl, slurping his beer, which spilled mash down into his beard, and then he belched.

Ashwyn heard a noblewoman gasp nearby.

“Barbaric,” Ashwyn said, shaking his head.

Tamir belly laughed which raised more than a few eyebrows. He took a nearby straw and used it to mix the beer around the keg and clear the mash.

Ashwyn sighed, “You don’t stir the beer, you mindless brute! It’s considered impolite.”
Tamir held up his hands, saying, “I need to get rid of all the mash. I want beer, not mash!”
Ashwyn tisked and shook his head, saying, “That’s what the straw is for. I swear, I can’t take you anywhere.”

Sumi walked up behind them and said to the dwarf quietly, “It is impolite to stir.”
Tamir threw his hands up, “Everyone is a critic.”

She wore a long, purple flounced wrap layered in the shapes of leaves and pinned at the shoulder by a gold and turquoise fig tree, with two earrings in the shape of owls dangling from her ears, and a necklace of lapis lazuli. A charm depicting the gray-eyed goddess Ish hung from the necklace. Her long, black hair was in braided, oiled plaits with mica and gold dust sprinkled throughout that roped around her head like a crown where a wreath of beaten-gold willow, poplar, and beech leaves crowned her head and shimmered in the light of the flames. Her eyes were darkly kohl-rimmed and a striking violet that caught the light when she moved.

Ashwyn could not help but notice how much she resembled Sandya—the One Who Dwells in Twilight; the Evening Star; the only woman he ever loved and the one he walked away from.

Tamir elbowed him in the ribs, and Ashwyn shook his head, smiled, and said, “Good to see you.”

“You clean up nicely,” she said, examining Ashwyn.

Tamir cleared his throat loudly.

They both looked at him.

He said, “I believe you were going to make our acquaintance with murder suspects.”
“Right,” she said, smiling.

Sumi hooked her arm in Ashwyn’s, and the group walked over to two men sitting on cushions playing a game called ‘Four Divisions.’

She whispered loud enough for the dwarf and elf to hear, “These two are priests in the Cult of En—God of Wind and Storms. Their temple is considered neutral ground—a place of debate and fellowship.”
“Do you suspect them?” Tamir asked quietly.

“I am not sure, but it is possible.”

The trio reached the board-game and Ashwyn and Tamir studied the layout.

Sumi said to the players as they walked up, “Gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to two visitors from the West. This is Tamir of the City Under the Mountain, and Ashwyn of the World Tree.”

“A pleasure,” the priest, losing the game, said.

The other priest nodded and smiled. He gestured to the board and asked, “Do you gentlemen play?”

“I do,” Tamir said.

The priest, losing the game, stood up and said with a smile, “I’ve already lost and it’s time for more beer. Feel free to take my place, Tamir.”

Tamir sat while the priest across from him set the pieces up for a new game.

Sumi said to Tamir, “We’re going to mingle,” and she and Ashwyn walked away.

She asked Ashwyn, “I take it he can interview without you?”
“He is obstinate and stubborn, but quite perspective. If anyone is going to sniff it out, it’s him. Do you suspect the Cult of En?”

“Not especially, but given the threat, it is only prudent to be safe.”

They walked to a group of priests shaved bare, each with a tattoo—called Te—on their shoulders depicting a coiling dragon in the shape of a spiral, with the head and tail forming lines which acted as a marker of ownership by the god and the temple.

“Cult of the Dragon?” He asked her quietly.
She nodded and said in a whisper, “They are chief suspects.”

A priest with pearls tied to his drape was in the middle of saying, “Of course, on the steppe they are called Manu, Yemo, and Trito.”

Their conversation died as the pair walked up. There were four of them in a clump around an opened barrel of fruit mead. Each was shaved bare as a sign of purity, wore kohl around their eyes and dressed in the fashionable kaunake, with bare chests and a fringed drape over one shoulder.

Ashwyn said, walking up and smiling, “Funny you say that, I was just thinking of the myth of three brothers today.” He smiled cooly and added, “Forgive me, I am Ashwyn of the World Tree in the West.”

They looked at the elf, then at Sumi and a priest with a gold and faience collar of self-glazing quartz paste and necklaces of strung beads said, “A pleasure. What interests you about the myth?”
“The sacrifice,” Ashwyn said.

He noticed a flicker on the priest wearing the faience, which was then cut short. It was then Ashwyn heard raised voices out along the wall of the street and the sound of metal clanging.

“Shit,” he said as men broke into the gathering, raised swords and axes and slaughtered the guests. The party-goers scattered, many running into the reception hall nearby. Armed men in scale-bronze armor blocked the exit.

Ashwyn watched the dragon priests and only saw fear on their faces, except the priest with the faience, who was calm.

A nobleman nearby screamed, “Please, please!”

And an attacker cut short his pleas, bringing a sword down and nearly severing his head as blood sprayed across the friezes, sheer curtains, flowers, and frescoes. The spray of blood from his neck wound gradually slowed as he died and collapsed to the ground. A woman nearby screamed, with her wig falling off, raised her hands and pleaded at an attacker who swung an axe and severed her hand.

Sumi grabbed Ashwyn’s hand and pulled him towards the reception hall. Guards rushed into the area from three sides, and the bronze doors of the reception hall were closing behind them.

Ashwyn pulled free from Sumi, strode across the floor, picked up a bronze sword and an axe, and then ran for Tamir.

He threw the axe to Tamir and then said to Sumi nearby, “Go! Go now!”

She hesitated, then relented, turned and ran for the reception hall as the bronze door closed with a muffled boom.

Ashwyn asked Tamir, “Right or left?”
“I’ll go right.”

Several guards rallied next to them in the courtyard with flower petals raining down around them in the pale moonlight. The attackers carried Yakmen steel, a rare, costly, and unusual material for those in bronze armor.

Ashwyn looked at his bronze sword and said, “We are out-matched.”

Two attackers charged, coming at him as a team, and Ashwyn met their swords, first low by the masked man on the right, and high on the left. The bronze sword nicked and bent when meeting the steel. Ashwyn considered the next move. He brought the sword out in a sweep, hoping to meet the block at a flat angle, making sure his swing lined up with the throat of the attacker. The swords met, and the bronze shattered with a whine and a snap. He did not stop at the block to parry and instead kept going with the swing until the broken sword reached the carotid artery while the attacker's arm continued outward, leaving him open. The attacker dropped the sword, clutched his ruined throat with blood pouring through his fingers, and died gargling at Ashwyn’s feet. Ashwyn turned and threw the bronze shard at the other attacker, piercing the bronze plate. The sword-turned-ballista stuck out of his chest, and he dropped his weapon with a clang and died feebly, pulling at the sword.

Ashwyn picked up the fallen steel sword and approached the remaining attacker. The masked-man in bronze armor circled him. Ashwyn feinted right and then switched sword hands faster than anyone could follow, and met the open throat of the second attacker who brought his sword up to parry him on the right. The man dropped dead at his feet.

“Clear!” he heard someone call out, which was met by more.

Ashwyn dropped to his knees, attempting to catch his breath, and considered the puddle of blood spreading out from his victims.

Tamir yelled out, “You alright?”
“Yeah, just tired.”

Tamir said, “What the fuck was that about?”
“I wish I knew,” Ashwyn said, regaining his breath.

He walked to a nearby corpse, pulling off the bronze helmet and saying, “Human.”

“These over here as well,” Tamir said across the courtyard.

Ashwyn knelt at the corpse, marking the man. He was black-haired and brown skinned—a local boy. Ashwyn checked his hands and found calluses belonging to someone who held ropes.

“A fisherman,” he said.

He leaned over the dead man, catching the scent of water, pitch, and fish.

“This is no mercenary," he said to the dwarf, who walked over and looked. He added, standing, “It’s just a fisherman’s son. Who would send such as these to storm a heavily guarded palace?”

Tamir shrugged, looking down, “Maybe they’re here to hide who is involved.”

“Maybe.”

The door to the reception hall swung open; a troop of guards and the king walked into the courtyard. The Big Man bellowed out commands and then said, looking at Ashwyn, “You two, come!”

“Seems we are being summoned,” Ashwyn said, dropping the sword.

As Ashwyn and Tamir walked over, the king said, “My guard tells me you defended this house and me. You may ask me for anything, name it and it is yours.”

Tamir and Ashwyn looked at each other and shrugged. Sumi walked out of the room, listening with an arched eyebrow.

Tamir asked, “Do we need to tell you immediately?”
“No,” the king said.

“Then,” Ashwyn said, “We will tell you three days before the next full moon.”

3

They stayed in the palace that evening, and by morning, the bloody courtyard was clean, as if the battle had never happened. The elf and dwarf walked out to a stall across the road, brought millet flatbread drizzled with honey and fired-clay bowls of tiny minnow and river-dace cooked in sesame oil with garlic, mustard, wild-coriander and splashed with siqqu—sour fruit vinegar. They washed down the warm bread, the honey and the heat of the little, spicy fish with sour beer that was mostly mash.

Tamir asked, “What the fuck was the point all that last night?”

Ashwyn said through a mouthful of flatbread, “You get everyone in the same place, decapitate the government.”
Tamir nodded and finished the thought, “Then the trusted priesthood picks out the next leader.”
Ashwyn shook his head, saying, “I don’t think it’s the full story. It’s ‘how’ and we lack ‘why.’”
Tamir straightened and said, “Speaking of not getting the full story.”

He pointed across the road with a little fish before crunching into it. Across the street, Sumi left the palace, walked through the crowd and stood before them, her servants and acolytes keeping a distance.

She asked them, “Any leads?”

Ashwyn looked at Tamir, who shrugged and then looked back up to Sumi, saying, “We don’t think you’re being honest with us.”
“How’s that?” She asked, stepping closer.

“You haven’t given us the complete story,” Tamir said, crunching through the little, spicy fish.

“I haven’t,” she said, and stepped closer.

Ashwyn waved a piece of flatbread, “Continue on, or we walk.”
Tamir nodded.

“I—” she frowned, paced and said, “I can’t tell you. Not yet. You’re getting close—a little too close—and I am sorry you were attacked. I can’t.”

“Why the hell would we help you?” Tamir asked, adding, “You don’t trust us, I—”
“No, it’s not that. I trust you, but I can’t influence you. I have suspicions but if I tell you, it may sway you, or influence you.”
“You play things so close,” Ashwyn said, adding, “A little too close.”

“So you’ll continue?” She asked, stepping forward another half-step.

Ashwyn sighed and said, “Alright, but we want interviews today, which you will arrange.”
“The Cult of the Dragon?” She asked.

“No, your cult. We want to speak to the priests and priestesses of Ish.”

“Our cult?”
“Yes,” he said.

Tamir belched and said, “Hold on, why do you keep pressing us to implicate the Cult of the Dragon if you’re not trying to influence things? It’s getting suspicious.”

“I can’t tell you! I have—I just can’t. Just know there are good reasons. That you two are outsiders helps us determine what’s going on. You—”

“You put us under surveillance?” Ashwyn said, leaning forward.

“Yes.”
Tamir held up his hands and said, “Okay, what the fuck is going on?”
“I can’t get into it,” she said, looking around.

“Is Ana of the Waters—Ish, I mean, involved? Is the goddess involved? You mentioned Stormy Gray Eyes when we met.”
“She suggested we reach out,” she said quietly.

“No,” Ashwyn said, shaking his head vigorously. “No, no, no. I will not take a step further.” he looked at Tamir and said, “We should go get Rusty.”
“Ashwyn, please, don’t be rash.” She said, taking two steps forward.

He stood, held his hands out, and said, “Why shouldn’t I? What’s rash about leaving? Since we walked into the city you have surveilled us, pulled us along by the nose where you wanted us to go, based on almost no information and what little we have we had to pull teeth to get—”

“While getting attacked at a dinner party,” the dwarf added.

Ashwyn nodded and said, “Now I hear the gray-eyed goddess is involved, the same one who has been moving me around her gameboard for years? I will not.”

“Then more will die,” she said quickly, adding, “You know more will die. And one day, it may be too late to stop everything going on. Run away, like you always do.”

Ashwyn narrowed his eyes and pointed, saying, “You know nothing about me.”
“I know you have been running since wiping out a civilization north of you, prince. I know why you did it and why you have never stopped running since. I know what you’re capable of. Some day, you’re going to have to stop. Some day, there won’t be anywhere to run to. The Wheel turns, priest.”

“I’m no priest.”
“You don’t even know what you are, Albah. I will arrange a meeting with the priests at both temples,” she said, adding quietly, “And then I’ll tell you everything.”

Ashwyn let out a long breath and looked at Tamir, who shrugged.

“Alright,” he said.

She turned and walked quickly away.

Tamir said quietly, “She knew about Yuvan—your brother. And the Kingdom of Clay Pots. She called you prince.”

“And she called me priest,” Ashwyn said, looking after her. Adding, “Dammit.”

“How the hell could they know about all that? We’re thousands of miles away.”
“I don’t know and I am getting sick of saying it.”

They finished breakfast, walked to the large ziggurat in the city-center, with a column of rising smoke from the morning's sacrifices that smelled of charred meat, wood-smoke, and incense.

A priest met them and asked them to wait in the middle area between the outer-walls and the whitewashed courtyard. The songs of the priests, far above them on the top of the pyramid at the cella—the sacred open-air shrine—carried over the white-noise outside the walls. The space between the outer-wall and outer-courtyard was a garden, with herbs and flowering plants; plots of einkorn, legumes, and peas, irrigated by underground sluices, using pressurized river current to feed the many fountains that flowed throughout the temple into fired-clay irrigation channels.

An owl landed in a palm above them, and Ashwyn considered the animal and then looked into the temple, where the high priest hobbled his way to them, assisted by several acolytes and a cane.

He gestured to low benches, set in a circle around the scarlet blossoms of a pomegranate tree. The three sat, and an acolyte served them date-wine in a clay-fired bowl with a reed straw.

The priest said, swatting flies, “How can I help you, gentlemen?” And sipped briefly before setting the bowl down next to him and holding the cane in front of him. His eyes were foggy with cataracts, and Ashwyn wondered if he could even see them.

Ashwyn sipped and said, “Thank you for your hospitality. We have a few brief questions. We have been asked by interested parties to investigate several murders.”
“The priests and priestesses of Ish.” he said, nodding.

Somewhere nearby, an acolyte plucked at a fifteen-string, arched, vertical harp strung with stretched gut. The buzzing, bright notes carried over the garden. The music moved up and down scales, like falling water. Ashwyn considered the dull yellow-green blossoms of henbane and the bright red of poppy flowers growing among patches of herbs nearby—feathery dill, coriander, thyme and cumin, with watercress growing in a bitumen-sealed irrigation pool.

“Where does your cult stand on moon rites?” Ashwyn asked.

“We worship under the Shining Sky—so that the Witness above sees our offering. We do not have moon rites. The Night Sky judges.”

“Hmm,” Tamir said.

Ashwyn pointed to the scarlet blossoms of the tree above him and asked, “Do you make fruit mead, by chance?”
“Yes, yes we do.” He smiled and added, “It’s quite good on a hot day. We have an ice-house below the temple in an insulated area where it is kept. Would you like a bowl?”

Ashwyn smiled and said to the priest, “That would be wonderful. While we wait, what can you tell me about the story of the Twins and the Third Born?”

The priest wearing the faience, the unsurprised priest from the party, walked forward, whispered to the old man, who nodded and rose with a grunt.

The priest wearing faience said to Tamir and Ashwyn with a warm smile, “The high priest has many cares, and little time. Unfortunately, we will need to reschedule.”
“Very well,” Ashwyn said, standing as the group walked away.

Tamir and Ashwyn walked out of the temple, back onto the crowded thoroughfare.

“Thoughts?” Ashwyn asked.

“They make fruit mead and that interruption was certainly interesting.”
Ashwyn nodded. “And right on time. Did you notice the poppy and henbane? Both can be used as a paralytic in heavy douses. And an ice-house is a good place to store bodies.” Ashwyn said.

“How does that work? Ice? We’re in the middle of the desert.”
“They gather the ice in the winter and store it in an insulated room with copper pipes that cross the roof. The flowing water removes the heat, it’s probably quite cold.”

“Do you think they’re involved?” Tamir asked, looking up.
Ashwyn shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe some—maybe not. It seems the deeper we get pulled into this, the less I know.”

Their next appointment was at the Temple of Ish, outside the city. They walked up a nearby e-kir to a whitewashed temple on the summit, not more than a shrine. The square-shaped temple, with a columned outer-courtyard, an inner courtyard with a smoking altar and depiction of the goddess, and a square-shaped Holy of Holies in the middle sat on a hilltop, overlooking a working-class neighborhood around the base. The high priest met them at the walls with a smile, walking through a cloud of smoke and incense blown off the altar.

He bade them wash and remove their footwear before crossing the threshold into the outer-courtyard. There were no fountains or great baths for ablution, so they washed with pails of water pulled up from a deep, dark well, dunked over their heads.

The high-priest was not particularly opulent as befitted his station, and instead wore a kaunake of plain wool, no shoes, and he shaved himself completely hairless—not even the eyebrows remained. He had kind eyes that smiled when his mouth did.

When finished with cleansing themselves, he walked over, extended an arm, and said, “Welcome to the Temple of Ish.”

He bid them follow him into the temple, speaking over his shoulder as they passed a group of acolytes sitting around the idol of the goddess, chanting quietly and singing songs of praise.

“Why does Ana—sorry, Ish—need a temple?” Ashwyn asked, looking.

“I have to feed my family somehow,” the high priest said with a smirk, which brought about laughter from Tamir and Ashwyn. He added, “If I am going to sit on my ass and think all day, why not get paid for it?”

Which brought about more laughter, and frowns from the acolytes who stopped their praise and glared at the dwarf and elf. Ashwyn whispered his apologies as they passed.

The priest said over his shoulder, “I am Nan, by the way.”

“Ashwyn,” the elf said.

“Tamir,” said the dwarf.

They walked to a cubbyhole office at the far end of the outer-courtyard, surrounded by crates of food, temple vessels, and a single tax collector sitting‌ nearby and snoring. Nearby were steps to the flat roof where astronomical measurements were made by the priests of the temple. They sat on cushions in the office with holes high in the walls to remove the heat, while an acolyte served them sweetened date-wine out of fired-clay cups.

Nan said after taking a sip, “Sumi said you may have concerns about us.”
Ashwyn nodded and shrugged, saying, “Possibly, and thank you for your hospitality.”

“What concerns can I address?”
“I am not sure, truth be told. She has been tight-lipped,” Ashwyn said, looking at Tamir.
Tamir set his date wine down, reclined on the cushions and asked, “Have you noticed anything off.”
“Off?” Nan asked, sipping.

“Anything,” Ashwyn said.

“Some, yes.”
Tamir sipped again, then set the wine down, saying, “Go on. And what does the goddess say?”
Nan raised his eyebrows and grimaced. “The goddess—yes—she has not been helpful, but she would also remind she doesn’t exist to be helpful. I know she suggested Sumi contact you.”
“I resent the hell—opps, sorry—” Ashwyn said quickly.

The priest smiled, waved it away and said, “It’s alright.”
“I resent the hell out of being moved around by her. She never shows herself but I know she’s there.”

Someone darkened the doorway, and they turned to look at Sumi, who walked into the room and sat on the cushions next to the high priest.

She accepted date-wine, and then dismissed the acolyte serving them and said, “I thought about what you said. I want to tell you everything.”
“Are you sure?” Nan asked, and then gestured to Tamir and Ashwyn, saying, “They could be the others? We don’t know.”
“They call themselves ‘Indu’” she said quietly. She took a sip and said, “Some say they were ancestors to Albah, some say the ancestors to the Gandharva—some of our people in the east. Whoever they are, they revenants—the cost of a sin that has not been atoned for from the First Age. These shadows are being summoned by unknown parties and taking over the bodies of sacrifice victims. They infiltrated all the cities along the river—the priesthood and the leaders. Not soon after, the leaders become erratic, turn on allies, profane the gods, become war-mad.”
“To what end?” Ashwyn asked.

Tamir shook his finger. “I wonder if that’s why these people are burning them. The summoning failed.”

“Could be right. You know, the name Indu sounds familiar. At the end of the First Age we defeated an enemy, but lost the name. It had something to do with a river and soma. It culminated in the Battle of Black Fields. Storytellers go on and on about how darkness was banished. The histories I read made it seem like we crippled ourselves,” Ashwyn said.

“We don’t know their ends,” Nan said.

“This is why I didn’t want to tell you. I wanted you to puzzle it out yourself and identify our suspects.” She said with a sigh, sipping on date-wine.

“But they have a right to know,” Nan said, gesturing to Tamir and Ashwyn.

“And the goddess won’t help us?” Tamir asked, and finished his bowl with slurps, foregoing the straw.

“The goddess would tell us she doesn’t exist to solve our problems for us.” The priest said, looking at Sumi.

“So helpful,” Ashwyn said with a sneer.

“What did you learn at the dragon temple?” Sumi asked.

Ashwyn looked at Tamir, who said, “Circumstantial but nothing definitive.”
Ashwyn nodded. “Our interview was interpreted. We asked about the Twins and Third Born and a priest stepped forward, whisked the old man away, and mumbled apologies.”

“Do you have a plan?” Sumi asked.

“Yes,” Ashwyn said, “but we need to know where the next sacrifice will take place. You are astronomers and astrologers. Can you predict the next location? Do you have informers?”

“We do not," the high priest said, adding, “but we can tell you who the next victim will be, or we think he will be the next victim.”
Ashwyn said, after sipping, “Put minders on him, see where he goes, who he talks to.”

Sumi said, “Already done.”

Tamir asked, “Who is it?”
“The High Priest of Usum—the Cult of the Dragon,” Sumi said.

“Great,” Ashwyn said, “We just need to know where.”

Nan rummaged around the room and then unrolled a bleached leather map. It was a stellar chart, displaying the constellations and notable celestial objects in an arc across the sky.

Nan pointed, “The first sacrifice took place when Mul was above—the Eye of Night,” he said, pointing to seven blue stars in a cluster. He pointed to a man with three stars for a belt over a long tunic, “The next was as the Great Shepherd was overhead.” He pointed to a charging bull, “And next was the Bull—the mount of the moon goddess Nani.” He pointed to a funeral bier, “And the next would be the Constellation of the Dead.”

Ashwyn said, pointing, “We call it Harktos in the west. It means ‘The Bear.’”

Tamir said, “And I assume these constellations are associated with high places, as they are in the west?”
“Correct.” He rummaged around, found a bleached leader map of the city, and unrolled it. “These e-kir’s are associated with each constellation.”

Ashwyn looked at the dwarf and said, “It’s time we are seen to leave this city, Tamir, but only before asking for our boon.”

Tamir smirked and nodded.

Ashwyn and Tamir finished their interviews and walked back to the palace together. It was there that a servant invited them to eat with the king in the evening. They accepted the invitation, changed and bathed, and walked to the reception hall together.‌

At dinner, when asked if they had decided what they wanted, Ashwyn whispered to the king over the sound of party-goers and music, “We want twenty of your best and ship that goes east.”
“East,” he asked, leaning back and cocking his head to the side.

Ashwyn nodded and whispered, “If anyone asks, we are travelling to Bharata.”
“Where will you actually go?”
Ashwyn smiled and shrugged, saying, “If anyone asks, we went to Bharata. Be vocal about our departure. Make sure everyone in the city knows.”

The king shrugged, “Strange request.”
“We’re close to tracking down the attackers and the murderers.”
“Very well,” he said, “It will be done.”

The next day, amid much fanfare, Ashwyn and Tamir walked to their ship, with an open deck where the captain and hands waited for them. Below deck, twenty of the king’s best silently waited. They brought out the oars and paddled out of the harbor below the city, heading down the river towards the delta. And once out of sight of the shore, carried on across the river where the boat grounded itself. They hopped off, waited for their detachment of soldiers to disembark, and walked out into the desert. And then they waited.

4

Ashwyn, Tamir, and a complement of soldiers in bronze–scale armor walked into the desert and disappeared. The world still had pockets of people—cities, villages—but over the span of Ashwyn’s life it had emptied and grown wild.

The river nearby started as three in the mountains of the north and then merged, carving a deep channel before spreading out in a delta and spilling into the gulf at the bottom. Just beyond the marshes, the date palms, the villages and farming communities was rock, sand, and dust that kicked up in great, rolling storms that darkened the sky many afternoons, or hung in the still air.

Occasionally, they passed an oasis, standing up from the plateaus and seen from a distance where antelope, gazelles, and wild donkeys kicked up dust clouds on the horizon. Occasionally a herd of aurochs, or sounders of wild boar, would emerge from the gravel ocean around them, watch them, and then disappear.

They followed a consistent water source across the landscape, walking parallel to the river, just a few miles away. At night, lion prides stalked their group, watching them closely with night-shine eyes that caught the light of their fires. Wolves howled out in the blackness, along with the bark-laugh of hyenas that echoed into the dark night.

Two days later, they approached the e-kir, overlooking the vast plateaus to the west and south, and the just visible river to the east. They camped along the shores of an oasis, bordered by blinding white, dusty limestone cliffs which showed evidence of past habitation. There were ochre and charcoal drawings on the wall—hash marks, stick people, spirals—spirals everywhere. Ashwyn considered a therianthrope in the torchlight while they settled—something with the body of a lion, bird's wings, and the head of a man with pointed ears.

Tamir asked behind him, “What is it?”
“Me,” Ashwyn said, turning and saying, “That’s how they depict Albah.”
Tamir walked up beside him and pointed at another therianthrope—this one with the body of a wolf, sharp talons, a scorpion's tail, and the face of a man. “Who are they,” he asked, adding, “Sometimes you hear the humans say there are two of you, sometimes one.”
“I don’t know,” Ashwyn said, frowning.

“Those are elf ears,” he said, pointing. “What do they mean?”
“Protection for the inhabitants—to ward off evil spirits.”

“They call you protectors, what do they call them?” He asked, pointing at the other depiction.

“They’re called Tzel—the shadow people.”

A voice at the mouth of the cave called to them. Ashwyn walked through the soldiers, sitting along the cave walls and napping, or playing dice, or plucking lyres, and walked to the front of the cave. The guard on watch pointed far across the dusty landscape to a cloud. And as Ashwyn looked closer, he saw it was dust kicked up by a caravan.

“I think that’s them,” Ashwyn said. He called out to the soldiers, “One more day.”

And then they waited.

On the evening of the full moon, they left their oasis cave home and trod west across the plain, walking towards the e-kir in the dark before the full moon rose on the horizon. They encircled the man-made mountain, sitting under the funeral bier constellation, and approached the gathering of six people silently. Ashwyn, Tamir, and the soldiers with them climbed carefully up the rocky hillside, careful not to start rockslides. When positioned, Ashwyn and Tamir crept to the lip of the hill, to the flat section at the top, and watched.

There were five men, dressed in the regalia of priests, standing around another man lying on the ground. One of the barefoot priests wearing hoods wore faience.

Ashwyn said, “That’s the asshole from the temple.”

Tamir said in a whisper, “They haven’t started the rite.”
Ashwyn nodded with his chin. “The moon isn’t up yet and the constellation hasn’t aligned.”

They watched, waited, crept closer, and the man on the ground at the center of the ritual writhed and babbled incoherently.

An hour later, the moon rose, first veiled by clouds on the horizon, but soon rose above them. And there, in the silvery moonlight, the man leading the ceremony turned into a corpse. The dead man read incantations from a clay tablet. Stretched, rotting skin covered his face, and one of his eyes was missing.‌ The smell of rot carried over to them as a gust of wind kicked up around them, and the rotting man continued the rite as those in attendance rotated around the dying high priest. The wind picked up even stronger as an ephemeral mass—a shifting, black cloud shaped like a man with blazing red eyes rose from the ground while the wind grew stronger. The shadow with red eyes—something in which light did not stir—hovered over the victim.

And as the wind roared around them, Ashwyn yelled, “Now! Now! Now! Damn you! Now!”

The dead man turned to look and yelled out something in a language Ashwyn had never heard as the top of the hill became a violent, swirling wind, while the soldiers rushed the gathering, climbing to the lip and charging in all directions. The wind continued to swirl, growing stronger and stronger. Heat poured off the swirling flow, while lightning jumped from the furnace wind.

Ashwyn screamed over the roar, “Down! Down! Retreat!” As lightning jumped from the cloud, striking the men in bronze armor, leaving smoldering holes through their bodies.

They ran down the e-kir, escaping the stinging wind, lightning and booming thunder, which soon quieted and echoed off into the distance. Ashwyn ordered them back up the hill. Several soldiers reached the top before him and stood with their hands on their hips, or hung their heads.

The hilltop was empty. Ashwyn ran to the top, examined the site of the ritual and found nothing but bare rock and the impression left by the burning, spiraling wind.

Ashwyn yelled, “Back to the city!”

They walked back to the river, dragging their dead, and waited for their boat. A soldier raised a torch and signaled downstream, waving the fire back and forth.

Tamir asked Ashwyn, while the boat pulled up, having hidden in thick sedges along the shore, “You saw that, right?”
“Oh, you mean the walking dead man or the entirely localized thunderstorm?” Ashwyn asked with both eyebrows raised and an edge in his voice.

Tamir shrugged. “Both, I guess. What the fuck was that?”
“I wish I knew.”

When the boat beached itself again, they climbed on board and set off across the water, with the oars brought out to move them through the cross-current. The boat dropped them off outside the city-shelf. Sumi met them at the top of their climb as dawn broke.

She raised her chin in question as they walked up, and Ashwyn said, “They’re corpses, revenants.”
“Did you deal with it?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “We didn’t. They got away.”
“It was a dead man,” Tamir said, “No doubt about it. A walking, talking corpse.”

She sighed and pursed her lips. “Dead.”
Ashwyn nodded, “Dead. Who are they? Do your people talk about these Indu?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “We don’t talk about such creatures in the east, it’s only in the west.”
Ashwyn hung his head, let out a long breath and said, “Then west is where we go.”