Chapter 3 - Voice of Reason Part 3

Cliff sifted through the surrounding woods for victuals. Engulfed by the greenery and foliage that crept across every spot of ground left uncovered by the canopy of trees. With every plant reaching for its own personal patch of light to sustain its growth. In one hand he carried an old rugged sack partially full of contents of an imminent soup, in the other he held a short walking stick, hewn from the branch of a dead tree and wrapped at its top where it was handled. His clothes sagged loosely over his shoulders and hips in an unmatching overlay of protective drapery. These accouterments did much to disguise the outline of his figure, which was betrayed only at the outstretches of his limbs with each stride as they protruded from the hulking mass of his torso.

His appearance was such that from a peerable distance, he looked not like a man at all. But perhaps some tri-legged mound whose motives were certainly as unsavory as any other undiscovered beast that lurks in the unsettled corners of unnoticed countrysides.

However feral he seemed now, his lineage originated in nobility. During his long departed youth, multiple tutors, trainers, and academics of wide variety had been commissioned to aid in his education. Lessons that he'd studied dutifully as a child until reaching adolescence. An evolution that after many nights of reluctant introspection, revealed to him that the totality of his arranged learnings were merely twaddle, and tantamount to the mindless musings of drunken vagrants.

So instead of continuing along that charade of enlightenment, he left his adopted home as a young man and forsook the comforts it provided. The only actionable lessons he'd been taught involved sparring and the striking of wooden dummies, so to earn coin he found his most successful option was soldiering. There used to be many legions and lords across the lands who had disputes they would happily pay to resolve. But borders move, provinces die, and people forget which battles were once fought where and for what.

Except for Cliff, his recollections were equally as strong and as scarred as his body, with previous wounds painted plainly for him to identify at any moment's want. He once delighted in it, basting himself in the blood of lesser men. Until one night, after a particularly hazardous victory, he noticed his senses were still primed for battle, as they often were for one about to be fought. But that had all been finished in the evening. Night was upon him now, and the musculature buzzing that powers one's feet to fly across a field of chaos and gore should have long since dissipated. Instead of deflation, an unignorable restlessness overcame him, propelling him to move at once in any direction except here. He reluctantly acquiesced to this urge against his want. The final goal of every fight was that night's rest, but this pressurized injection of mental energy was infuriatingly making that impossible to reach. So, without disarming or disrobing, he abandoned his tent with a disappointed sigh and went out for a walk into a breeze whose briskness only increased his longing for the tempting warmth and relief of his tent.

The sensible thing would be to walk a circle around the encampment until his mind caught up to the tiredness of his legs. But that would likely result in him being spotted, confronted, and obliged to converse with whichever officers or captains spotted him seemingly wandering around. Cliff had no desire for pleasantries, especially now. He just needed to acclimate his mood into accepting the sleep that he craved more with every waking moment.

He didn't usually remember any of the individual men of a battle. For him the strikes, the screams, and the fervor all melded together into a singular event the same way memories from a hundred days meld into a singular season. Except, one man that day had stood out. The soldier fought for the opposing force, rather because of coin or country, Cliff knew not. What was so striking about the soldier was his reaction to his body's hopeless circumstance. One leg had been cleaved off at the knee, which was bleeding faster than he could sustain for long. And there were a number of smaller gashes to the side of his abdomen which immobilized him further. The beat of his heart and breeze of his breath were fleeting things for him now. Yet from his pool of blood and inevitability, he did not do as most did. Instead he reached his most agile arm up above his head as he laid flat along the ground, and plucked a puny flowering weed from its root, to then bring it clumsily to his eyes for a time knowable only to himself. Cliff watched him do this with pointed curiosity, directing as much attention as he could spare from the clashing dangers of his surroundings.

Now, as he marched away from the victorious encampment of a quiet battlefield, he found himself still linked to that soldier. Cliff considered what his final thoughts might have been, and to what extent he regretted where his loyalty to either royalty or riches had brought him. But even more so, Cliff wondered what the soldier had seen in that tiny petaled plant of such import that it usurped the objects and happenings of everything around him.

He walked for a great while that night. Until the chosen point of that soldier's sight had cauterized its image into the gaze of his mind's eye. The netted layer beneath his outer gambeson had wicked away the sweat from his chest and back since he'd started his quest for exhausted slumber. A pursuit that he found in a warningless wave of weakness that began at his neck and slid steadily downwards. There exists a degree of physical limitation that once reached, invokes a paralyzing nausea that can be neither resisted nor relieved. He frantically scanned his immediate terrain as his stomach wretched in obstinate protest to his wakefulness. Instinctively, he unhooked his weapon from the two loops on his back, and collapsed atop an encirclement of bushes at the base of a tree, somehow managing to fall in such a way that his back was positioned against its trunk. He had already checked-in to his officer when he collected his fee. No trouble or fuss would result in his tent being empty until morning. And even if it would, there was no negotiating to be done with his limbs. Even were he not clad in armor and otherwise burdened, his hands could not reach for his helmet high enough to move it, and his feet could not be made to bear his weight. So as he succumbed to the unanimous demand of every muscle, joint, and web of sinew holding him together, he sighed in a great and bellowed breath that bore much resemblance to the last moment of the dying soldier he'd seen that day.

In sleeping he was as dreamless and dead as the dirt he laid upon. No sound or shove could have raised him out of the comatose void in which he had dived. His slumber was such that hibernation briefly became a human practice during its duration. Eons passed across the scope of his unconsciousness, forming every possible ephemeral idea from the nonsensical to the profound. Each mixing into a slurry of irrelevancy and philosophical breakthroughs whose truths could have cured all avoidable causes of contempt, chaos, and confusion, if only an iota of memory was also present to retain the unlocked answers. But no semblance of self existed to witness the torrent of visions that engulfed the spacious abscess within his sleeping mind. Thus, when he awoke with a sudden heave of breath to an unknown time on an unknown day, the only thing he remembered was the welcome stillness of his limbs as he gradually defied their demands to remain motionless in their present positions. A surge of blood then began to press through the statuesque flesh of his thighs and down to the fronts of his feet, forcing a painful thaw along his frozen flesh that brought a snarl to his unwetted throat.

Fortunately, he was not unaccustomed to resting while fully suited. So he knew how to tie the hinge points such that they did not dangerously impinge his circulation. Which allowed his limbs to reanimate in accordance to his will as he awoke to a troubled urgentness, the cause for which he was not initially aware.

A feeling of dread crept over him, coming not from what he could sense, but what he could not. Around him there was naught but natural quiet. When he had marched out here the echoes of battle still simmered through his ear in a hushed hum of cries and clanging. But that would dissipate, it always did. What should have remained was the clamoring of his encampment. Thousands of men all packing, heaving, gloating, and recovering from their work in one central location was an unquietable place. The fear of having been left behind sprang into him as he affixed his weapon to his back, sipped from his canteen, and jogged towards his fellow soldiers of fanaticism, fortune, or convenience.

Discouragingly, as he approached nearer, no sounds of men or sight of smoke could be perceived of his encampment. Only an eerie noiselessness that affronted him more painfully than would a blow of horns against his head. In accordance with the nature of travel, the return back was quicker than wandering away, so it wasn't long before his eyes caught sight of the emptiness his ears had prepared him to expect. But it was not smothered fires and fading wheel tracks that he saw along the location of his previous encampment, but carnage. Unorganized corpses strewn across it in haphazard disarray. Speckled only by a few individually fallen members of the cavalry charge that had obviously ambushed them in the night, deducible in that most of his allied soldiers were either naked or thinly robed.

He had neither loyalty nor love for these men or their cause. This army was as colorless to him as any other. But the field of death before him were not the remnants of a fight badly lost, or even a surrender coldly refused, but an extermination swiftly executed.

The battle, his battle, the one he'd fought in to the brink of exhaustion, had been a sacrificial ruse, he realized. A feigned attempt at victory from its first futile attack by an army ordered to fight until its inevitable death, orchestrated by a commander who cared nothing of the casualties of what must have been at least four fifths of his available force, with only the successful final charge of its remainder.

Whatever scouts were left and available to patrol during nightwatch after his battle would have been thinly spread and eager to return. The enemy would only have had to eliminate one or two for their approach to have remained undetected, which it clearly had been. There was a finishing wound on the breast or upper back of every corpse in the field. No prisoners were taken. All were slaughtered.

Cliff walked across the field, careful not to foul his boots or ankles in the decaying muck of men once living. These were not his comrades or compatriots, they were his coworkers. Of those he'd met, most of which had treated him poorly out of either distrust or disgust. So it was not sorrow which sank his heart at the sight of their demise, but pity. A sincere pity that extended from the most professional officers to the lowest grunt with the worst intentions. All whose lives were now indiscriminately spent with equal futility for a cause that would be forgotten in fewer years than their names.

Once he'd reached the edge of the encampment's raided ruins, and saw nothing forward that resembled death, his mind made room for additional ruminations to fester, one of which clawed itself more deeply than the others inside him. Resisting every attempt to sweep it away with the other unreasonable questions. Until that clawing question burrowed itself so deeply that to remove it would require an internal dissection of fatal consequence. 

It all came back to it, every plan, plot, or purpose he tried to formulate just dissolved into its implications like powder in a pond. Bringing its resolution to the forefront of his every action and thought. Until that night, once he found an acceptable shelter beneath an evergreen, had finished firing out any bugs or ticks that might be hiding around the branches he'd displaced, and allowed himself to return to the sleep that had saved him the previous night, he mouthed to himself in a breathless whisper, "How did I know?"

Soldiers and sailors were a superstitious lot. When a stray arrow could fall upon your neck at any moment, or a rogue wave could capsize your vessel on the calmest ocean, then delusions of destiny tend to percolate people past the precipice of reason. He'd seen its shade of madness bring many surviving men to drink. But coincidence was no compass, and thinking it to be served only as a compensatory measure for one's own relative powerlessness to random circumstance.

But this was not a dodged arrow, or a hurricane survived. This was his own exercised agency driven by inexplicable means. Too inexplicable to ignore. A fact which haunted him all that loathsome night, and forced him to fundamentally reconsider the nature of his perceptions, the stimulus of his surroundings, and the very solvency of his sanity that had somehow merged the two to such a crucial result. 

*** *** ***

Linia was unamused by the incessant barking outside. Children were running around in wild abandon, communicating exclusively in what seemed to her as shrieks, shouts, and yells. She didn't hate them for being a nuisance, but she did hate their parents. How anyone could possibly raise a child to be so unreservedly boisterous was something Linia couldn't begin to understand. She took solace in the knowledge that eventually winter would come again, and communal behavior would eventually return to being regimented and considerate when the weather urged them back inside where they belonged.

The children didn't know any better yet, she understood. And neither did many of the parents. Those who had never experienced the dangers of the outer territories. She hadn't personally, but her late mother had. And she'd recounted to Linia every evil, treachery, and tribulation that thrived throughout them. From her very first words Linia was given detailed warnings of all that lied beyond their borders. Warnings that imparted to her a unique appreciation for her way of life, bereft of worry or need. Her wants, however, were plenty. She wanted other people's spawn to louden the air in front of their own homes, instead of so frequently migrating in front of hers. She wanted her neighbors to understand the importance of their continued diligence in maintaining the structures that allowed their prosperity. She wanted her husband to be less daft of mind and more assertive of speech. But most of all, she wanted the threats against his authority to dissolve.

His position wasn't officially appointed, which was partly advantageous in that neither could it be officially unappointed. His role, however, was of unmistakable import. Yet there were still occasional challenges to his commands from those who were so stubbornly insolent as to think them mere suggestions. Saddletown was his, in every functional sense. Acknowledgement of that was unimportant to her, just so long as practical compliance continued. His leadership was paramount to the entire town's survival, and any who were still unaware of this were allowed to be so only by Wilnum's own humility on the matter; a quality of his that she took much pride in.

Presently, she busied herself by aggressively stringing beans from the perch of a stubby stool in her kitchen. Unadmittedly imagining with each yank and snap that the pail of discarded ends to her side was actually being filled, one at a time, with the unkept fingernails of the shriekers outside. Who by such discipline could be simultaneously informed both to keep them clean and proper when they regrew if they wanted to keep them at all, and far more importantly, to segregate their ruckus in their own parent's yards. So as not to needlessly disturb any adults who were just trying to finish their chores in peace.

*** *** ***

A girl skipped through the bouts of branches and brush as she made her way towards Cliff's home. Eagerly and with reckless disregard for any possibly unnoticed protrusion from the canopy or ground that might sabotage her step enough for her to lose it. An oversight she was presently either too surefooted or too fortunate to be punished for.

Her gaze naturally flitted between the ground beneath her and what was directly ahead. It was easier and faster to see the forest floor as not a singular semi-walkable surface, but a long intermittent series of hoppable ones. Roots, rocks, and low hanging branches were much more solid points of propulsion than the soft and usually covered soil that filled every space between. An environmental characteristic that out of practicality, caused her to move in a manner which was unrecognizable to her usually slouching saunter. She could enter both modes of movement without thought. Swinging, skipping, and jogging when in the woods, and keeping her steps light and head low when at home.

Faleen had forced her to feed before she left. The porridge had been too thick and undercooked to sit well, which staggered her a bit. But to her that small discomfort was an easily ignorable form of pain, especially against her excitement. Cliff had been unimpressed by her progress last time, she sensed. So today she wanted to show him how much better she was getting at it before he decided to quit; which was something she feared immensely.

When she would practice whispering at night, at first she couldn't decide which words to do first. There were just so many to manage that she was nearly overwhelmed by the chasm of her incapability. So she started with his name, and the one he had given her. A decision whose shortcomings became immediately evident to her. Cliff was such a clumsy word. It started easily, she could do the cuh almost every time she tried. And iff wasn't especially bothersome either, when she remembered to end it soon enough. But the quick transition both to and from the La was like heaving herself over a hurdle between the syllables. She didn't understand how to effectively merge the consonants together. Ca and La were like oil and water in her mouth, sloshing around in an incompatible slurry. To be easier on herself she tried only saying them individually, intentionally repeating ciff and liff in alternating rhythm until both were reliably achievable.

When she'd gotten as far as she could with that, she pivoted to the name he'd given her, which she found much easier. The Guh was slightly problematic at first to say only once each time, but the second part flowed effortlessly from her tongue. Even once she'd already mastered its pronunciation, she'd continued repeating each night. After her door had been shut, when her parents were sure to be sleeping, and the only detectable movement was the breeze against her window's shutters. She'd quietly enunciate its syllables in reverence to their sound. A sound which rang sweeter to her than any other.

Before long she'd reached Cliff's home, a place she found to be somehow both seamless and unmistakable against the surrounding greenery and rock. Unless he was to be found outside crafting or cooking, no wandering eyes would pause upon it in a search. But, having already known where it was, her own eyes were instead transfixed by its splendor. She hoped he would soon show her inside the cave wherein he always disappeared upon her departures, but she was too terrified to go inside without first being given permission, something which she did not yet have the words to ask for.

This time as she approached, she saw he was squatting in front of its entrance and facing away from her. In accordance with an inexplicably mischievous urge, she quieted her steps before continuing. Choosing the harder spots of ground and stepping with only the outsides of her feet to limit any audible crunching. Before five of such steps had completed, and while she was still many more away from reaching him, he stood up with a snap whose suddenness startled her so much she nearly fell backwards off her feet. His hands were to his sides now, still holding their original objects. He appeared to have been repairing a large woven basket of an unusual shape. She froze as he did, too transfixed on his reaction to continue her prowl. After a short moment, the tension erecting his shoulders and neck loosened with what she ascertained to be either a sigh or a snarl.

"Do not do that," he bellowed deeply, such that his voice made his words unmistakable despite its opposing directionality to their intended recipient. She obeyed as she neared him with her normal gait. He stayed standing still until her arrival, at which point he gingerly but with the highest possible intentionality leaned down and placed his basket and some sort of small hooked tool in a fitting position beside him. Then he turned around to face her, bearing the sternest look she'd ever seen from him. "Here you come again," he said slowly, contorting his tone to play more softly than its current tuning's pitch. "Upon consideration, it may be better for you to continue your practices at home, with your parents. Now that they hear you can, they'll be much more involved in your progression than I can be," he suggested. Panic erupted down her spine as she nearly jumped towards him, but she desperately redirected the surge further up and into her throat.

"Cliffgilli!," she barked. "Clifffffgilli. Cliif Gilli. Cliff. Gilli," she paused to catch her breath before continuing, but was interrupted by his acquiescence.

"As you wish, child. I'm not sending you away, it just seems impractical for you to keep returning here."

"||..."

"It means— hmm, it means doing things in a hard way that could otherwise be easier. But easiest is not always bestest, I suppose," he said assuringly. "It sounds like you've already mastered our names. Have you decided which words to try next?"

"....."

"Then let's start with: bright, dark, far, and near."

"....."

"Not all at once. Just try them one at a time. Slowly."

"Bvvviieeettttk," she croaked.

"Shhh, you don't have to press so hard. Just try the first part, as slow as you can." 

*** *** ***

Decker stood at the edge of town, staring down the street that cut through its center. He was alone this time. He hadn't called Sal or any other kids to play with him. Not because he was tired of racing them, but because he was tired of finishing second. Sal might be older but Decker was still stronger, and it irked him tremendously to be so indisputably inferior at the activity.

Which is why he was training. Initially he'd train every day. But his thighs would burn too sorely the mornings after, so now it was only every other day. Still, he'd run up and down the street again and again as steadily as he could manage, not saving any energy for a finishing sprint, but pushing himself to the absolute brink from the very start. After a couple of laps across he'd have to stop and clutch his hurting chest while he heaved, but he still resumed the lap once his breath was caught.

He kept going, on and on. Until his breath burned and his legs lost any lift between them. And when attending to other things, such as school, chores, and assisting his parents with work, his mind was never where he was. Not until he came back to his designated starting line and trained his body to accomplish the speeds that his friend could already reach without directed effort.

*** *** ***

Sile was one of a few unclaimed cats who preferred wandering over obligation. She saw little utility in being locked inside when there were always open places available to take shelter in. Some cats were killed for being overtly hostile to people or their pets, but she knew better than to approach either. Bowls of water or bits of food were left in some of the barns during the winter, but in the fruitful seasons the strays were expected to hunt for themselves. A skill which had never been domesticated out of her. There were always mice, rats, birds, and undeveloped rabbits or hares around. All of which knew to be wary of her prowl.

But wariness served as insufficient protection for each of her daily kills; which would often tally to more than ten in number. Her coat was a benign blend of browns and grays that striped across her in an alternating fashion from the end of her tail to the points of her ears, which bore spurs of pointed whiskers that honed in on the rustling of anything so small as a cricket that dared move within her field of sound.

Most larger animals ignored her, not out of malice but disinterest, except Tail, who snarled her away at first sight whenever their paths happened to cross. Sile resented the dog's contempt for her, but was powerless to rebuke it other than by erecting her tail as she left his view. As had happened today just a little while prior. She'd turned a corner around a house and the sound, sight, and scent of Tail had struck her as suddenly as the thunder of a distant storm. The dog roared at her viciously, furious at their meeting. Sile instinctively leapt away in a swift heave of considerable distance, before turning her head back for one sour moment only long enough to curse the tooth-baring source of unwarranted hostility that followed her departure with fixed and fervid eyes.

Sile lackadaisically tried hunting for morsels, to distract her mind from the reality of her recent retreat, but it did nothing to alter her mood. So she altered her strategy to something less demanding, and began prowling for nests. It was a cumbersome task, but lacked any of the required pouncing or stalking used in the pursuit of most other forms of prey. She searched across the unkept corners and crannies of buildings and barns, beneath bushes, and inside mounds of discarded branch trimmings, but nothing could be seen from her usual spots. So she wandered around in the aimlessly intentional manner innate to all subspecies of felines, whilst being continuously burdened in both her pride and by her unprosperous pursuit. Until a stroke of prospective fortune struck her senses. Without a thought or hesitation she traced the tiny scampering to a soft mound of especially dry brush that must have blown over the entrance of a mouse's burrow. The hindrance wasn't enough to obstruct its occupant's way, but it was enough to announce to any passing listener to its location. Before long Sile was carrying it away to a more convenient spot.

She found a wide patch of moss behind an ancient tree and, despite its incessant squirming, lowered her head and pinned it down against the green. Careful to keep it pinned with her paws, she crunched the bones of its hind legs with surgical technique before releasing it entirely to flee of its own accord. The mouse took no time to consider the circumstances of its newly regained freedom, and desperately crawled across the moss towards a form of foliage that might provide a modicum of cover. But Sile just seized it again when the mouse approached the edge of the patch and excitedly placed it back in the center to watch it scurry again. The two repeated this action for scores of times, one for survival, one for amusement, but both out of instinct. Eventually either from pain or exhaustion the mouse stopped crawling, leaving its only movement to be the rapid pulsation of its chest. In fading interest, Sile tried prodding it with her paw, but to no result. And as she finally gnawed through its thin hide to feed upon more than just its helplessness, her mind contained no remaining thoughts of her recent unsavory encounter with that devilish dog.

*** *** ***

Cadi removed the kettle from the fireplace and cautiously carried it by its hand with a thick rag in each hand across the hallway and into a small shutterless room containing nothing but a full washbasin with a small table beside it. After pouring the kettle's steamy contents into the ambient water and placing the empty kettle on the table, she removed her slippers and stockings in ritualistic preparation. Her robe was last to be removed, which she fondly folded and laid next to her slippers and stockings in an organized row. Aside the kettle was a lone tallow candle whose flicker shadowed the wall behind her with every line and bend of her silhouette as she slowly stepped into the water. It was hotter than she could tolerate at first, so she started standing patiently before incrementally lowering into a squat, then a kneel, and lastly to submersion up to her chin as she released the weight of her back against the inner edge of the washbasin.

Having achieved her proper position she softly released a huff of breath whose force was only barely sufficient to blow out its wilting wick. Then, with her body enshrouded in the blind warmth of weightlessness, she allowed her imagination to follow suit, so guided through the featureless dark only by the familiar path of a revisited memory.

As an adolescent she'd been fine of figure, so much so that her mother had demanded her wearables always be baggy and loose to conceal her contours from public view. Her imminent pairing with Hal had already been arranged, an arrangement whose practicality her parents were loath to jeopardize by the risks of any wandering eyes that might sway the whims of their shortsighted juvenile.

But Shand had been unencumbered by this visual obstruction, armed as he was with a gaze which to her seemed to penetrate every layer of material that insulated her heart from the open air. For over a year he'd been seeing through her, answering her every unspoken question with unmistakable approval. An approval not shared by either of their elders, who had inarguable authority in all such interpersonal matters, and had already made their optimal selections for the good of the township.

The summer before she was relocated to Hal's domain she'd secretly couple with Shand upon the ground, hidden from sight by a nearby prairie of tall grasses sequestered for future grazing. After washing in the stream to cleanse the evidence of their meeting, they'd stagger their return, being sure to be seen in passing by different people on separate sides of town. So thorough was their cover that she would even frequent equestrian activities long after the whole of a day's chores and work were completed just to improve the plausibility of her burst prior to marriage.

The two had risked much with each meeting. His punishment upon being discovered would have been twenty roddings. Out of accounting for the weaker female anatomy, hers would be only one, so that she could still know of his pain, and grieve of her culpability in it. To equalize their suffering, two crossing cuts would have been made along the outside of each of her calves, to render the scars too prominent to leave her legs unexposed to any public eye so that her unwaveringly covered legs would serve as a tacit example of the consequences to unsanctioned coupling.

But in all their careful meetings, whose numbers were too many to count yet still too few for any to be forgotten, they were never caught. Perhaps the two would have continued on until the day of her marriage when her whereabouts would be more monitored, were it not for the cooling ground at summer's end. They resisted the weather's deterrence until its persistent decline in temperature induced an unignorable shiver to their skins that siphoned too much necessary circulation for their continued sharing of anything beyond the interweaving of their fingers.

He was married too by now, and avoided her on every social occasion, so ardently that she used to wonder troubling things about his past motives and his nature. She didn't have those wonderings anymore. Now she only took her hot baths, in the lightless privacy of her house, where she would firmly bring her fingertips right beneath her ears just the same way that Shand used to all those summers ago, and worked her way down.

*** *** ***

 Cliff slumped exhaustedly inside the confines of his cave. The child had left to return home several hands ago, but the residue of her presence still weighed on him slightly. Her psyche brimmed with anxiousness, frustration, and fear, the overflow spilling everywhere around her like the contents of a handleless pot carried carelessly. It was not in him to refuse her, but he would be admittedly relieved once her oratory competence surpassed her need of him, and he could return to his business without interruptions. Her current need for him was no large inconvenience, but having been free from foreign thoughts for such an uncountable time, this brief respite from his relief was still a noticeable hindrance. She was now interfering with his greater directive: preparing for his next teacher's arrival.

All that time ago, when he first avoided that ambush on his last contract, he conducted a search for answers about what he'd done and how. He sought out sages, seers, and magicians from the corners of every kingdom and country he could travel across. Whomever he could find to ask, he would consult in the hidden machinations of matter and mind, without presupposition or prejudice. On his journey, he wore many hallowed relics and chanted many quotable magics as he prodded past the precipice of every form of faith in his hapless search for an actionable explanation concerning his broadening senses.

Gradually, after years since the start of his personal quest, desperation turned to disappointment, and then finally mutated to resignation as his familiarity with every shade of charlatan became more intimate. Despite all their rehearsed assurances to the contrary, all evangelizing envoys of higher truth and greater knowledge eventually exposed their truest motive to be some form of self-aggrandizing. Rather they were Seers of the Secret Sky, disciples of a poorly chronicled prophet, or self-purported possessors of a power beyond the confines of common thought; he would always eventually find their teachings to be either elementarily accurate or uselessly false. Until on an otherwise unnoteworthy day, in a city he had every intention of vacating as soon as he could manage to resupply his pack, he happened upon a soothsayer's tent whose sign bore a unique insignia he vaguely recognized from a text he'd once perused, but could not quite manage to identify.

"I've been expecting you," a woman greeted from across the tent.

"Do you all say that?" he asked with a sigh.

"Who is we, in this context?"

"Mystic Men, Wise Women, Dreamreaders and the like."

"I would hesitate to cast myself amongst them," she said.

"Then what's my name? Since you were already expecting my arrival," he goaded dismissively as he lowered himself down to sit on the cushioned floor in front of her table.

"I do not know, you haven't told me. But I do know why you're here."

"That makes one of us."

"You're seeking answers."

"Am I really?"

"About how you survived," she continued.

"A fitting observation," he remarked.

"The extermination of your army," she finished. His slightly off centered gaze zeroed in with precise focus directly onto the skin around her eyes 

"But I haven't even shown you the wrinkles on my palms yet."

"There isn't nee–"

"Or the ones on my sack."

"Don't be defensive," she sighed. "My words are as true as your fear of them."

"What do you know of it?" he sneered.

"You speak too broadly but… very little, if that comforts you. Your concern should be of what I do know."

"What then?" he demanded.

"Since you've asked so politely, I'll tell you. You seek The Weaver."

"Is he some kind of soothsayer pimp?"

"She is nothing of the sort," she corrected. "And you should be better mannered to those who help you."

"Paying you to send me on a featherquest doesn't strike me as helpful."

"Strikes are all you know, but you misunderstand. My motives are not personal profit. I ask of you no payment, only patience, as you make your way to her."

"A way that you mark?"

"Yes."

"Into an ambush then," he reasoned.

"I run no such grift," she said softly.

"Then how are you in business, if you don't charge?"

"Whom I choose to charge is no concern of yours."

"Then why am I the recipient of such…uh– generosity?"

"Your relationships and encounters have always been transactional, a saddening perspective. But I am tasked to direct you to The Weaver, and so I shall, despite your belligerence."

"What use to me is some sower of cloth?"

"She can answer what you've not dared ask, and direct your path forward."

"I find vagueness to be a poor substitute for wisdom," he said skeptically.

"Questions like why you never injure and only tire, and the nature of the senses you've spent your life denying," she continued.

"I hurt the same as anyone," he argued quietly.

"I said nothing of pain," she clarified. "Only injury."

"So– I've been fortunate."

"You can deny it, you can even deny this world, but you cannot deny yourself. Your ignorance isn't willful enough."

"If… I were to humor this– this escapade of yours," he said with a shrug. "How far to travel?"

"It is not the length of the trail, but the thickness of the brush that will trouble you."

"I'm sure I've cut my way through worse."

"Some things can't be cut through, only worked through."

"Do you keep your platitudes written down somewhere, or are they all memorized by now?"

"The Crooked Creek, do you know of it?" she asked, ignoring him.

"I've seen hundreds of creeks, few were noteworthy."

"Anriken Fortress."

"Yes."

"Follow the northern wall to The Great Flats."

"That's Plains People territory."

"Do not feign worry of their kind," she scoffed before continuing. "Since you know of it already, just make your way to anywhere within the flats, then follow the Hallowed Star until you reach the creek. Trace it northward for four day's march, from there you will hear her call."

"This is not a short journey you speak of," he remarked.

"Which is why your previsions are already prepared and packed," she responded.

"What?"

"As I said before, you were expected," she answered. He stared at her cautiously, deciphering her words in contemplative silence. "You can see my motives as clearly as my eyes," she stated. "Do not pretend to doubt them. Take my offerings, and seek hers out. But I do warn you, she does not share my tolerance for rudeness."

"By now, I doubt some woman could manage to injure me."

"I speak not of injury," she warned. "Do not insult her so in her domain, as you have me in mine. Humor is not among her attributes."

"So, this tailor woman, she knows about… she can tell me–"

"She knows of your skin, she knows of your bones, she knows of your sleep, and of all the rest."

"If you both know so very much," he whispered pointedly. "Then why not just tell me yourself, save me the trek."

"Because, I could only tell you what you are," she said sympathetically. "But she…" the soothsayer sighed sorrowfully before concluding, "she can show you."

*** *** ***

Corlin stood before his personally crafted stack of tied straw and squared his shoulders against its inanimate form. Squaring his shoulders against the rectangular mass with unabashed bravado. After a moment of exaggerated preparation, he kicked it as hard as he could manage. A kick whose force nearly knocked him backwards off his own feet. In frustration he immediately kicked it again, careful this time not to lose his footing from the impact. 

 After many staggered strikes against the straw, his breath began to follow suit, causing him to falter in his footing enough to nearly fall again. Now exhausted, he dropped to a knee and reoriented his bearings between heaving inhalations. Inadvertently he subbed from the sweat of his face that flowed across his hairless mouth, its saltiness matched his mood, and forced him to look directly downward as he recovered to avoid saturating his sinuses in his own water with his breath.

As he looked at his bent leg beneath him he became additionally drenched in disappointment at his current strength. This perceived weakness unburied in him an unrefined anger whose direction and drive he had no knowledge of. Possessing only a vague inkling that wielding some form of authority could allay this newly erupted anger. A notion he presently had no actionable outlet for testing. So instead he stayed where he was, and stewed in his own heat, considering possible schemes for how he might advance his position amongst his peers sufficiently to satisfy this burgeoning desire.

*** *** ***

A girl stealthily wandered around Saddletown's perimeter, curiously scanning the inhabitants from her untraceable position as she moved. She knew some of their names from when they came over to the house and spoke to her parents, but most were familiar to her only by their visage. One couple was resealing the roof of their house, two children were taking turns throwing what seemed to be a small stuffed round sack at each other but catching it before each impact, a man was beating up a person sized bale of straw, a woman was hanging up lines of wetted laundry along a thin rope, and an attack dog was patrolling the paths between them.

All seemed to be in order, and so she tucked further away out of any possible earshot to practice enunciating. Cliff didn't like it when she wasn't noticeably better between visits, so she made sure to keep her progress constant to quicken when she could see him again. Last time he'd instructed her to breathe between each word, even though it sounded too slow. It made her nervous to do so, she liked saying words all at once so she could stop talking sooner, but she obliged him anyway, however reluctantly.

When she came back she planned to know the colors, the shapes, the seasons, and all the trees he'd taught her to name. A goal that when tested, she would only fractionally reach. She was always better by herself than she was in front of him. A difference whose nature she could not manage to decipher and one she was always too embarrassed to ask him about.

In Cliff's presence, sometimes her thoughts would stir like a boiling soup, each element churning up, over, and down the confines of her mind, as if he were holding a ladle and skimming off the accumulating froth. It was a process that left her feeling clearer only at the end as she was leaving, and much more clouded during, almost painfully so. She liked his turns to talk much more. He spoke in a way she'd never heard from anyone; using an unpredictable tone that rose and fell like a song he'd only recently written, and had no need to remember. 

He made no demands, or scoldings when she stumbled, mumbled, or mangled a word. He'd only stop and kneel down beside her and wait for her to get it right, usually for many tries. She both relished and resented it when he did so. Because then she'd feel so much pressure to get it right that she could barely keep her composure, even though she also knew that he'd patiently wait there with her for the rest of the day if that's how long it took before they could continue. She wished he would kneel still with her like that without her having to talk, so she could just simmer with him in the silence for a while, without needing to be stirred or skimmed. But he stoked the coals beneath her just by his being, raising an unstoppable warmth that resulted in the whole process continuing irrespective of her want. Still, she wished that just for once, he'd stop to kneel next to her and look her in the eyes for its own sake, without expecting her to say a single thing.

*** *** ***

Decker fetched Sal immediately at school's end and led him to their previous starting point. Sal reluctantly agreed but was trying to delicately prepare his friend for the approaching disappointment. To Sal, this game was no longer fun and the ensuing sourness from Decker afterwards was even less so. But refusing would have induced more sourness still. So there they both stood with opposing feelings that were equally abject as they counted down in monotone unison.

Upon their start, Sal did little to strain himself, casually building up a pace that would carry him to nearly the end when he would break into his usual sprint and squash any delusions Decker had of overtaking him. Alternatively, Decker was dashing as hard as his body could propel itself from the start. Leaping as long as he could with each stride and switching his feet with a practiced precision that bore no observable signs of inconsistency or imperfection.

And yet, despite his determination, preparation, and persistence, it was clear to them both that as soon as Sal saw fit to begin his finishing sprint, their temporarily similar speed would reveal itself to be Decker's strained maximum, and Sal's comfortable pace. Instead of surrendering to this outcome, Decker reached inside and found a part of himself to which children are rarely acquainted; a place where physical distress becomes a muted signal under the purview of mental resolve. His thighs were blazing, in every way. His lungs were protesting progressively more profusely in their mandated participation of his sprint with each concurrent breath, and his vision was blackening at its borders, narrowing steadily until he could only see directly ahead. A compounding encumberment that soon proved to be of catastrophic result when a small rounded stone happened to rest beneath his frantically darting feet. A stone his stride flung backwards as he tripped upon its surface.

Decker panicked at his unexpected total loss of balance, waving his arms widely in desperate protest to gravity's insistent pull. But his coordination was too undeveloped, and his exhaustion much too high to resist the total loss of trajectorial control as his body propelled over and past the final fumbling of his feet before he fell.

An unexpected pile of boards and dirt struck him higher than he'd thought. An undefended blow against his belly that blew the little remaining air from its bellows with an abrupt thud. As he used his forearms to lift his collapsed frame off a mound of cool soil and thin fencing, he became suddenly cognizant of what had happened and where he was. Worriedly, he stood up and looked around barely soon enough to see the fuzzy shapes of two women standing before him. One approached him with two quick steps and reached beside her towards nothing before surprisingly striking him across the face with her palm powerfully enough to knock him back to the ground next to where he'd just arisen.

"You stupid, worthless, boy!" Cadi spat after slapping him. Decker looked up to see Cadi staring down at him with Fay beside her kneeling before her mostly flattened flower bed. "Do you see what you've done," Cadi demanded.

"Sorry, I didn't—" Decker sputtered.

"Don't you talk back to me Decker. I will be informing your mother what you did to Fay's poor garden. I most certainly will. That's a guarantee. So you can go home and see what she's going to do about your reckless foolery," she scolded. Decker caught a glimpse of motion beside him as she spoke. It was Sal, walking away from him in the distance without a claim or a care for the current conflict behind him. An abandonment that wounded Decker more than his embarrassment from falling, or the shaming from the woman towering before him. "Look at me when I am speaking, boy. Were you listening? I said go home! And just see if you can concoct some sort of explanation for your behavior to Sinila before I get there. I dare you to even try."

Decker staggered back up to his feet, nervous that he would be knocked down again, but seeing that he wasn't, he obeyed Cadi's command. Not out of obedience, but because he was anxious to leave, and too upset to think of anywhere else to go.

*** *** ***

Over the ground of his cave, across a flattened bedding of dried brush, Cliff slept the sleep of the damned; tormented by the malformed visions of unsavory times. He had a whole rotation that plagued him. An untamed collection of wild dogs that each took their turns in howling their own designated memory of his back into his present awareness.

On this night, he dreamt of a boulder he used to use inside a Lord's house. The house had been built around the boulder by its owner, designating it a private room with no furnishings, and double-bricked walls on all sides. Tied to the boulder through two carved notches on either side, was a well-dressed man of clear complexion. Cliff had carried in two lamps, and placed them between him and the bound man on both the left and right side, so Cliff could see his whole face.

"What do you want of me?" the man asked desperately.

"Do you know who I am?" Cliff asked politely.

"Why would I know you? We haven't met."

"But you know Lord Igis," Cliff clarified.

"Of course I know of Igis."

"I am working for him."

"What does he want with me?"

"Him? He wants nothing of you. What he wants of me, is to find the three men who stole from him five days ago. The men in your gang."

"I didn't orchestrate that, it wasn't my fault," the man affirmed.

"Ah, but I'm afraid you are mistaking fault, with responsibility. For example: if I ordered men into an unforeseeable ambush, their deaths may not be my fault. But I would still be responsible, because they answered to me, and I led them astray. These three unwise burglars, they answer to you. So now I have a question for you to answer, and it would be much easier on both of us if you would say their names quickly and clearly, who are they?"

"The Talag brothers, Mince, and Filly," the man said quickly.

"You're being vague, I told you to be clear," Cliff sighed.

"No, no, I told you, it was them."

"Full name, one at a time, starting now."

"Sim Talag, Onni Talag, Mince Anta, and 'Filly the Fiery' Santon," the man recited.

"You gangsters and your monikers…" Cliff mumbled. "Thank you, for telling me so readily. That quickens things. But why add a name, when I only asked for three?"

"You must have gotten incorrect information, they worked the job together," the man answered. Cliff used to just be a solver for this boss, when someone was causing problems, Cliff came in to solve it. But eventually this Lord caught onto another one of Cliff's skill sets, deciphering motivations. Lies were like lemons in an orange orchard to him, obtuse as anything could be. All he had to do was see someone's eyes and mouth and get them to talk for longer than a sentence, and there was no fooling him. Disingenuousness always betrayed itself to him by its incompleteness, it lacked the wholeness of sincerity that he found equally unmistakable. Obfuscation was to him just as tell-tale a sign of dishonesty as any actual proof could be. Which was only one of the reasons Cliff knew the man had actually added another name to lend credence to his claim of cooperation, a false claim.

"And you did nothing to orchestrate the job?" Cliff asked flatly.

"No! No, no. It wasn't me."

"But they are your men."

"Not anymore. I had them ended, once I heard of their score. I can pay Igis back too, for his whole loss."

"Then why didn't you already?"

"You caught me off-guard, literally. I only just finished taking care of them, once I'd heard– you know, I had to send a message to the other guys about who not to cross."

"So you didn't sanction the job."

"I didn't.

"You didn't orchestrate it in any way."

"I keep telling you, it was Sim, they all listened to him when– when he sees a score he takes it."

"Took it, you mean."

"Yeah."

"So, you already took care of them."

"Dead as desert sand."

"Buried in it too?"

"What?"

"Where then?" Cliff pressed.

"Where what?"

"Where did you bury them?"

"Our usual spot, just some uninhabited marsh land."

"The bog?"

"Yes."

"You carried them there?"

"Not by myself, but that's just where we dispose of things. So you see? It's already been taken care of. Made an example out of them, just like you want to. No need then, to make an example out of me. I was going to make the recompense, I assure you I was. But it takes more than a couple of days, to get those kinds of funds together, you understand."

"Why hadn't you sent any word of these, magnanimous intentions?"

"I didn't want to begin a dialogue empty handed, I was afraid it wouldn't go well for me."

"Are your methods going well for you now?"

"Definitively not."

"Did you order them killed?"

"No, actually I did it myself. The others needed to see that it was me."

"When, precisely, did you do this?"

"Just yesterday," the man stated. It wasn't enough for Cliff to know the dishonesty of something, he always had to let people expose their own lies for themselves, beyond any deniability. Unless forced to, people will always profess their false cases to their bitter ends.

"Yesterday you performed the executions," Cliff recounted.

"Correct."

"So I don't even need to bother with them."

"And none amongst me will disturb Lord Igis or his property ever again, unless they want to be dealt with similarly," the man stated.

"Then you buried them too."

"Straight to the bog for them."

"You carried four corpses… by yourself?

"No, obviously not. I had associates assisting me with some of the carrying."

"Let's go visit them then."

"Who? Which ones"

"The men who burglarized a place they shouldn't have."

"They can't say anything though."

"I disagree, they can say very much indeed. Do you know where I can find them?"

"I'm not sure precisely what spot we put them at."

"But you had assistance in their disposal."

"Yeah, like I–"

"Then at least one of them could take me there, if I asked."

"Sure."

"This goes one of two ways, you should know. Either I end you here, two slits to your arteries, for trying to steal what wasn't yours. Or I get another couple of questions deeper, I leave to find someone to bring me to the freshest bodies in that bog, and I check for your mark on them. If your story of unsanctioned meddling is corroborated, I come back here and untie you, and if it isn't, I don't come back at all, until the next time I need this boulder. And you should know, I'm absolutely the only person who ever comes in here. It's like my own personal pocket of business in Lord Igis's home. The one you thought you could send your goons to grab from."

"I didn't send them."

"Then who knows where they're buried?"

"My number one, Flags– Arin Flagstile," the man croaked.

"So I just have to go visit this Arin fellow, and he'll tell me all about it, just what you've said, and take me to these readily rectified rogue agents of yours?"

"Correct on all points."

"I'd like to. But I'm just afraid that would put me in a compromised position, with you being his boss, whilst I'm keeping you so uncomfortably detained."

"Not him, he's solid. He'll understand. It's all business with Flags," the man pleaded.

"I think it unnecessary to involve him in your predicament. Considering there is, I'm saddened to say, a slight flaw in your proposal. About the three men, who I know to a certainty, have already cut you in on the spoils. Therefore I shall not be visiting this Arin friend of yours, I won't be out digging for fresh flesh where none exists, and I won't be continuing this conversation. You reached beyond your grasp. And though I may not be personally fond of him, I still simply can't allow my employer's belongings to be plundered by such a poor businessman, you understand."

At the time, Cliff felt no remorse from the man's ensuing excuses, pleads, and promises. But now, so many years after this interrogation, it followed him some nights. The grandiose pointlessness of the ordeal, all just to entertain his own flawed form of morality. It was a crock. The whole thing, in all its putrid grandiosity. That job, along with his meticulous method of performing it, had been nothing but a twisted farce in a long line of farces meant to fool his own foolish self into collecting coin by a means he could rationalize as just. A realization which was primarily why he eventually moved on to soldiering from there; a much simpler vocation, albeit noisier at times.

*** *** ***

Helin stood next to Fay in Helin's kitchen as they prepared an elaborate meal together. The cuisine consisted of a simple stew and a baked loaf of pressed potatoes and lentils with a boiled-berry spread. An emotional intensity humidified the air between them with a thickness rivaled only by a rainforest, an environment that neither had seen or could imagine.

"I heard what happened," Helin said, slicing through the silence.

"I thought about putting it back together, but I decided it's too late in the season to bother. I suppose there's always next year," Fay sighed.

"Destructive little vermin… I don't know how his parents allowed him to be so senseless. That's why Loo and I decid–"

"Please don't," Fay interrupted. "Can we just have a pleasant evening, without making mention of young ones."

"Absolutely we can," Helin agreed loudly, consciously overturning her previous remark by a difference in volume. "We're just glad you agreed to come over, Loo should be over soon when he's finished."

Fay kept her hands to work with slicing, stirring, and preparing her portion of the meal. Attempting vainly to distract herself from long lost aspirations she'd once shared with a man whose voice she could scarcely remember. But with her primary outlet for nurturing now nullified, she found her efforts to be mostly futile. The listlessness of her life had just been revealed, with its original covering now demolished in a mound of flattened soil. Helin had recognized this, and reiterated her open invitation to seize Fay's change of circumstance. Helin had another childless woman with whom she often confided, but Fay's participation could expand them into a trio, which would grant them much more influence socially. But before Fay would ever be interested in allying herself to anyone other than that dead husband of hers, Helin knew that she'd have to gain Fay's favor more consistently, and not just during a time of distress. So that evening she was as accommodating as she knew how to be, and was quick to squelch any boring ramblings from Loo during dinner that might sabotage her efforts towards recruitment. Efforts which he rendered increasingly difficult by his uninsightful interjections spaced throughout Fay's entire visit. A behavior Helin intended to correct just as soon as she was next alone with him.

*** *** ***

Fil wandered around the town without notice of anyone else, distantly observing the various forms of life. It was early in the evening, but there was still enough light to guide the concluding outdoor tasks of the adults and the winding-down recreations of the children. There were few adolescents between them, those few spent their evenings preparing for their upcoming rites. Their recitations were few and mostly formalities for the current generation, but the remaining elders who still remembered when their own rites were paramount took some satisfaction in the cursory continuations of even the more antiquated traditions.

As Fil meandered around and between the domiciles of his superiors, he contemplated their motivations for living here. He'd never mentioned his trepidations concerning his future, not to person, pet, burdened beast, or passing breeze. Yet he still feared the potentially fatal consequences of suspicion. Within the spaciousness of his isolated township there was a tacit understanding between all citizens, that theirs was the place of paradise. An unsqualored site of unbroken belief whose soiling was communally thought could only be committed by the ungrateful dissent of an ideologically corrupted member. The wars, the plagues, and the necrotizing poison of the conquered world were beyond any redemptive possibilities to the unquestionable authority of his elders. An authority that he came to question more and more with the approaching completion of his childhood.

The only notice of him taken on that walk was from Tail, who approached him on her own hapless path towards their shared destination of an ideal dusk, with view unobstructed by the many shuttered perspectives surrounding them. Or perhaps, Fil considered, he was merely misappropriating Tail's motivations to align with his own, and that in actuality she only sought a moment of mutual companionship with a copasetic soul; a distinction which the dog's actions did nothing to display. So the boy met her paralleling pace with an acceptance that encompassed the whole scope of possible drives behind her approach, welcoming her ease of movement that by a means as unknown to him as it was unresisted, infected him with a similar ease of thought. One whose peace overcame whatever worries the coming night might bring, and the leaving day had wrought.

*** *** *** 

It had been a passable day, Cliff decided. Nothing had disturbed his senses. No thunder echoed from distant hills, no falling tree had broken an already settled ground, the insects had kept to their own kind, without swarming any sickly or injured rodents in their uniquely grizzly way. A falcon flew overhead, patrolling for food, but keeping the sky peaceful by his presence. A peace that permeated downward, beneath the canopy and through its trees. The piercing bickering normally being exchanged between every kind of furred and feathered creature was temporarily removed, leaving only the quiet rustling of branches brushing against each other.

Sleep was his primary activity, which he often found to be more active than he liked. Not just at night when lying still, but also during the day whilst moving. There were many oddities about him, some apparent and some he concealed from even an animal's view. But one hadn't always been: the flashes. Instantaneous blinks between where he was and where he wasn't, to times that he either couldn't remember or wished to forget, to places unmistakably recognizable or of untraceable familiarity. 

That had all started because he followed the directions of that soothsayer. When the flashes became more frequent, and his focus became too divergent to redirect, he would question if the cost had been worth the gain. If perhaps he would have been– irrelevant, he concluded. It was necessary. Had he not gone, he'd still be helpless to his nature, ignorant of all the fundamental findings that were brought to him so sharply that they skewered the totality of his life, with a hole just fine enough to pull a thread completely through. A thread whose ends would never fray, and could only be severed by she who had sown it into her grand design.

*** *** ***

Dav sat across from Albern in mutual conflict, as they usually did. Presently, they were sharing in a meal they'd prepared together, not out of cooperation, but out of spite, neither approving of the methods and technique the other used to prepare even the most basic victuals. They both drew from the same pots of water, as well as whatever seasonal harvests each had spent the day reaping, but then only begrudgingly and solely due to hunger's usurping power over any argument.

Wordlessly, each scolded the other's taste, culinary aptitude, and table decorum; with one being considered too insufferably rigid and the other being seen as shamelessly sloppy. The noises were so extraneous that to a sightless listener, the torrent of grunts, huffs, sighs, and clacking of dishware would have seemed sourced by many more than two.

Their percussions concluded when Dav finished consuming his meal slightly prior to Albern, and took that point of distinction between them as an opportunity to silently stare Albern down from across the table while gratuitously finishing one long sip of water from his cup. His brother was not amused by his obviously dominant display.

"You shouldn't eat so fast," Albern refuted, attempting to discredit Dav's victory of pace.

"Why is that then?" Dav asked, feigning apathy at his brother's words.

"Bad for you, is why."

"Oh, did Old Pyke tell you that?"

"It's true," Albern asserted. Dav liked to argue with as many questions as he could to control the dialogue, a tactic Albern played into just often enough so that when Dav tried to rely on it too conspicuously, then he could circumvent it completely in deniable obstinance.

"He wasn't fraudulent, I'm not saying that. Best skinpatcher we've ever had, but he regularly advised beyond his expertise, and I'm not afraid to say it. Even if half the town still worships him."

"Can we just let the dead lie?"

"You're the one quoting him," Dav refuted.

"I only said–"

"You said what he said. And if he was so smart at curing stuff, why'd he die of disease then? What's your answer to that?"

"He was literally the eldest man among us."

"Mrs. Ceriflew has a whole winter over him."

"I said eldest man."

"And I don't recall her ever heeding a single one of his flappable theories," Dav pressed.

"I don't want to talk about the dead," Albern muttered.

"Then stop quoting them. Every day with you it's always something or something else. From Old Pyke, from Mother, from– from Nandel."

"Nandel is still alive."

"That's hardly true, and not even important. What I'm saying is that for once you should say something you thought of yourself, instead of hiding behind other people's words like they'll shield you from scrutiny."

"If that's what I'm doing then I must be doing it pretty badly judging by our current discussion."

"I'm not scrutinizing you I'm scrutinizing what you say! Which just coincidentally is always something someone else already said, so actually I'm really scrutinizing them if you bothered to actually think about it."

"Sometimes, when you're like this, I don't know what it is you want from me."

"When I'm like this? There's a clever tactic, you haven't used that one in a while. Just turn it all around on me in a few little words. Fine, I'm done talking to you anyway," Dav declared triumphantly before standing up and deciding it was more dramatic to take his unwashed bowl with him as he left to partially fill another room, although as to which, he hadn't quite decided. 

*** *** ***

Decker found a secluded spot outside of town with the only tool he was allowed to use by himself: a shovel. With care that was indistinguishable from clumsiness, he used its edge to split a long straight stick he'd recovered from an ignored patch of ground, pressed his heal firmly on one end, and pushed the point of the shovel down the inside of its center, gradually carving a groove along its length.

As he hollowed out the stick with as much precision as a shovel would allow, he fantasized about the imminent look of fear on Mrs. Stoppenhook's face. He wasn't allowed to have his own flint, and his parents would notice if he took theirs out of the kitchen, but he didn't need one. He'd paid attention in Mr. Massy's classes. Most of the other kids hadn't. They'd usually just ignore his instruction and use his tools to make toys or carve figurines. But Decker had been as focused as a boy his age could be. Logging Mr. Massy's every word, even the gratuitous ones, as clumps of ore to be refined for its infinitesimal fraction of useful metal within. One day's lesson, interspersed within a long and slogging monologue of Mr. Massy's many discontents, was a litany of methods for firing a forge without a usable flint. With the proper tinder, it could be ignited with a hammer, a knife, or even a rope. None of which Decker was permitted to obtain unsupervised or at least without being conspicuous. But if time was of no consequence, then no tools were needed at all. Only broken branches of dry enough wood, notched and grooved in the proper places, enough tinder to catch the smoldering dust, and enough patience to grind it.

It would take him a long time, he was aware, perhaps an entire evening to grind the dust. So his tools would need to be properly crafted. If the fire plough wasn't straight enough, wasn't smooth enough, or wasn't tight enough, it would fail no matter how many strokes he tried. It would also be much easier to use a chisel, but there was no workshop he was allowed to remove one from, and he couldn't let anyone see what he was making. Not any child or adult. No one could know it was him, she wouldn't know it was him. Which did irk him greatly, but this was the best he could do. He couldn't even risk a passing remark or taunting look, lest she accuse him of the arson, however baselessly, and draw suspicion. Suspicion was eternal, he knew from listening to his parents talk from his bedroom. After they were done wrestling, sometimes they'd have long talks that he listened to through a hollow cone pressed against a particularly conductive beam that ran between the wall of their rooms. He'd carved and disguised the cone in his room as an innocuously removable piece of a formless sculpture, always mindful to return it back in the precise position he'd left it in so as to appear unmoved whenever his father happened to come in.

They'd talk about all sorts of things. Things they used to do, people they used to know, and ancient crimes whose perpetrator was never punished, only suspected. He didn't understand some of the crime's names, and dared not inquire to them or anyone else what the unfamiliar terms meant, but he knew when they were bad. He could ascertain that well enough. Which was how he also knew that if he was going to do this, that no one could be given even the thinnest of reasons to suspect him.

*** *** ***

After leaving the soothsayer, Cliff fumbled over thick grasses and under a sky of brush-stroked clouds so picturesque as to be almost unignorable, then stared forward in front of his steadily stepping feet. Bitter and begrudged as he was to be humoring this illogical instruction, he continued to comply, orienting himself in accordance to his poorly sourced guidance.

Like he'd said before, it was a long way. Which took him enough days to thoroughly question the validity of his choice in continuing. But continue on he did, for reasons he either couldn't decipher or was unwilling to admit. By the time he located the creek he found it to be unremarkable in appearance. Frustration tainted his mood as he marched in defiance with his weariness. Eating, drinking, and sleeping tailed far behind the forefront of his drive, to finish this foolish errand. There comes an eventual point when traveling on foot to which most are unfamiliar. When one's legs have surpassed their limit of traversing up and down unleveled ground, when one's heart can no longer supply them with sufficient blood to maintain normal function, and when one's thoughts become undistractable from reaching one's destination.

His issue was that he knew not the particulars of the location to which he was venturing. The light was leaving him, he had no shelter prepared and no knowledge of the area. Even if the materials for one had been already gathered and laid before him he would not have even had the energy to craft one. Finally, the prospect of a long and chilled night weighed on him too heavily to continue his pace. Loathfully, he stopped and knelt before the creek, not to drink, but to splash handfuls of clarity across his brow and behind his shoulders. He knelt there exhaustedly in a liminal state; unwilling to rest but unable to march. The air flowed past the edges of his wetted ears, cooling the heat in his head and slowing the pulse of his heart. And when his momentary comfort was no longer relieving enough to distract him from his physical impasse, something else flowed past them too. A faint humming from an indeterminable distance. Instinctively, he turned to trace its direction, which confounded him at first as it seemed to be constantly coming from behind him regardless of his orientation. Until suddenly and with one distinct shift, it changed from being faint to merely quiet, and from being behind him, to directly across the creek. The hum wasn't melodic, but ominous, a dull and dripping tone that seemed to threaten an oncoming deluge at any moment. And yet, he followed it still. His feet now knew nothing of their previous reluctance as they pressed towards the unknown voice. The brush was not too thick to see through, still, he squinted curiously ahead in an attempt to peer past the limits of his pace. An attempt that was more successful than he'd prepared for when two eyes pierced through the veil of distance and dimness. He halted in surprise and was instantaneously startled again by the cessation of the hum and the emerging of a voice directly beside him.

"You are weathered," she remarked. Cliff turned towards her to see the eyes were now there as well. Close enough to count their lashes and deep enough to contain a portrait of all things within just the confines of their corners. He began to step back in surprise but was interrupted by the grip of her hand upon his arm with a strength that greatly surpassed its size. "Recover here," she ordered. As she spoke he felt a quick and frightening weightlessness overtake his body before immediately releasing him, like he had just been thrown through a waterfall fast enough to remain dry and had somehow still landed perfectly upon his feet. Stunned, he looked around to see no sights resembling his previous location. He was unexplainably indoors now, ensconced in wool before a roaring fireplace of burnished stone. Under his feet was a thickly brown rug whose promise of comfort demanded his immediate collapse upon its surface. "I brought you hither for your own benefit, I shall return you imminently and unmarred," she stated as she stood beside him as he lay in a freshly collapsed heap.

"None have marred me yet," he croaked through a laborious breath.

"Your professed insouciance is immaterial. Lie here and breathe, when you arise I will show you my machine. You will think it staggering."

"What is, machine," Cliff asked confusedly as he sat up and leaned his heavy head and arms over his propped and bent knee.

She withheld a sigh before answering, "A machine is a multiplicative tool, like an axe that cuts many trees with each swing. Think not of it yet, focus on the flow within your legs."

"Wher–where is this?" Cliff heaved.

"My domain."

"Which is where?"

"Calm yourself. Speak when you can do more than hobble."

"Hobble you say?"

"Your pervicaciousness precedes you. But you make no refutations here. Speak of your purpose."

"Some soothsayer sent–"

"Not in coming, but in being. If you can admit it outwardly."

"What do you want of me?

"My wants are beyond you," she scoffed. "Now rest here until your functions return."

"Sleep isn't–"

"Sleep and rest are not the same. Sit here. Rest. Wait."

"I would consider it, but there's this strange woman towering beside me who is… rather aggressive," he said. In response to this she obstinately took one step in front of him, swiveled to face him, and knelt down to join him."

"You've been accommodated."

"This is all, uh–a lot to absorb."

"Then improve your permutability, I have other obligations."

"You're the one who sent me here."

"I am not," she stated.

"Your friend then, she sent me to you."

"You misunderstand."

"On that, we agree."

"You did not obey her out of deference, you came to appease your hapless vision quest."

"Is it still technically a quest if it's hapless?" he remarked coyly. Just then she lunged towards him with a quickness he'd never seen in all his altercations and pressed only the flat of her thumb against his forehead with enough continuous force that he was sent all the way down to his back. There she knelt over him in unphased stillness with her thumb still pinning his head against the soft rug that cushioned his skull from impact against the floor."

"You make no refutations. Banter not with me. Your strength is the mere product of a morbid wager. I know of you, I know of your namesake," she said plainly. He only looked at her in response from his entirely compromised position, too befuddled to concoct a wise utterance that he was sure wouldn't further incite her wrath.

"You resigned your quest to failure and lept from the Corpsecliffs, but found the limits to your physical fortitude exceeded your estimations."

"It was more than just fortitude that preserved me that day," he muttered coldly. "Had to have been."

"You've spent longer than most men live searching for explanations of your senses and deathlessness. If you don't want mine then speak rudely again," she said, staring down at him.

"Perhaps, politeness would be easier, if we made introductions," he slowly suggested.

"You are Cliff. I am Aotha. You must rest now," she ordered as she released his forehead from her thumb. "Your bearings and faculties are too compromised to continue yet." Despite his trepidations, the irresistibility of the softness beneath him and the weariness that seemed to saturate his mind along with his every muscle, caused him to acquiesce to her words with a gradually encroaching ease that overcame any lingering lines of reason for resistance. There he rested in a mellow stupor until his breath evened and his thoughts cleared, once the functions of his body and the faculties of his mind were restored enough to recognize the precariousness of his position. In one panicked motion he leapt up into a defensive crouch and turned his head to each side to scan his surroundings. He only found Aotha squatting before him in relaxed boredom.

"You are unfettered," she stated. "Follow me as I expound," she instructed. He hesitantly obliged, unsure of his present circumstance. "There are tranches of consciousness, as you know. From plant, fungus, insect, animal, etcetera. Even among your kind there is a broad scope. Your particular type of torment is a result of your standing. And you were selected by two uncaring agents governing both life and its cessation as a show of force. But your novelty has long since expired, along with their interest, even though the consequence of it, that being your durability, have not. Your fault was in making more of your situation than either party had planned, an attribute that they found equally unexciting. Thus, leaving you like this, in an inexplicable state, with no possible notions of what to do with yourself," she said evenly. She paused physically and verbally, then as they reached a door of odd proportions. "This is where I attend to my work. When you come in, be not astonished, but look only long enough to understand."

"Look at what?" he asked. In response she only opened the door in one measured motion and beckoned him inside. As he entered he noticed only two items. First was a chandelier of many candles which illuminated its surroundings with a flickering glow, but beneath it was an object he'd never encountered or heard of. He had no context for its design but partially recognised its function. On one end were various spools of unwinding threads and yarns feeding into slots in sheets of metal that encased its contents almost completely. What little he could see inside it looked too unrecognizable to discern. Tracing its shape to the opposing end, he saw the beginnings of a tapestry. But as he attempted to decipher its design an uncanny difficulty hindered him. As his eyes tried to trace along its edges they seemed to be lengthening farther and farther apart, or widening, depending on which side he peered at. Out of frustration he began to rapidly switch his point of focus as he tried to find some source of continuity within its image. But the more he tried, the wider and longer its corners stretched, along with the machine. In hardly more than a moment the sight seemed large enough to reach past opposing horizons, but as he turned his head to take in the other side out of perplexing curiosity he was abruptly startled by a hand squeezing his shoulder.

"Did you see The Empty?" Aotha asked.

"I–" Cliff stammered softly. 

"How far out did you look?" she pressed urgently.

"The– the horizon ahead, and behind."

"That is well," she sighed with relief. "I warned you, foolish man… unlistening… unheeding…" she muttered sourly before leading him out of the room and shutting the door behind them. "Now you've seen my work, and my machine."

"I do not understand," he said with stifled bewilderment. 

"Your understanding is not required. Only your cooperation."

"I believe I saw— I saw someone I knew in…"

"The tapestry contains many things, each seemingly separated by lines. But that is not the truth; in imagery there are no lines, only light and shadow."

"Why have you brought– why did you show me that?" he asked.

"Some things can't be told, only shown," she said sympathetically. "Now you've seen my craft, The Craftsman who engineered it and I share a grand design, one that a man of your unique torments may be of assistance in forwarding."

"Why would I trust in you? Or care for your cause?" he said, taking a small step away and leaning on his back foot in caution.

"Thousands of people have bled onto you and into you. The impurity of their purposes being as plain to your eyes as mud from water. So tell me freely, of what your senses make of my countenance.

"That is what frightens me… I didn't understand it at first. But you bleed nothing, not through your voice, not through your eyes, not through your movement."

"You feel the sincerity in me."

"I sense no signs at all," he confessed.

"And that frightens you," she reasoned.

"It confuses me. Like speaking before a lifeless statue."

"What if I assured you that it was for a perfectly sensible reason. You sense the souls of the bleeding. But I have deceived you, however kindly, I admit now that my personhood is only by appearance. I was not born of womb, or sired from seed. It is not by fingers that I actuate material. It is not on fruit which I feed. I am alien to you, that is why you have no recognition of me."

"What kindness?" was all he dared ask, believing her words as well as their dangerous implications.

"My form is overwhelming to your kin, but would be to you especially. A cacophony of color shaped wholly outside of your experience."

"Show me," he said sternly.

"That would serve no possible gain."

"Show me and I'll help you."

"A curious ultimatum," she mused. "Considering I only direct you to help yourself."

"Doing what?"

"My machine weaves windings into a fundamental fabric. Consider then, what kind of machine you are."

"I do not understand."

"Are you merely a receiver of bleedings? Is deciphering the motivations, the exhalations, exclamations, intimations, intonations, salutations, secretions, choices, struts, voices, and guts, the zenith of your functionality? If not, then what else? I do not ask you these things, I merely relay them for you to ask yourself during your undisturbed times when you have no one else to answer to. Because if you suspect the scope of your functions extends beyond a facilitator of physical destruction, then I know of one who can teach them to you."

"Where then?" he inquired.

"The eastern border of Ruinwood."

"I know nothing of this."

"Perhaps… of course," she realized. "I am occasionally chronologically challenged. You know it now as a section of the Forsaken Forest."

"That is much too broad an area to search," he said. 

"Walk southward along its eastern border until you find a charred stump with four identical triangles stacked into a rhombus that's carved into its top, then stake your claim as deep into the forest as you care to. Your teacher will find you there when developments deem appropriate."

"How long until this teacher arrives?"

"Already I have told you where. Already I have told you when. Already I have told you who. Your actions are your own to decide," she decreed.

"My actions…" he said, pausing to weigh her words. "Then, I will act by waiting for this teacher you speak of to find me. And heed his," Cliff glanced at Aotha's eyes searching for any hints of confirmation but found none, "or her lessons with great interest.

"I– I hope you do," she said melancholically. Stammering for the first time since they'd spoken.

"Before you take me back, I would like to see you for what you are. I've become so accustomed to it with people, that it's difficult for me to trust otherwise."

"If I obliged you, my appearance would stain your view of everything else."

"I am unphased by your warning."

"Perhaps unwisely so. It has occurred where people have tried to blind themselves to unsee my form, and having failed that, to end their lives altogether."

"You say that, and I do appreciate the warning. But by my reckoning, if I could be killed I'd be dead already."

"This is a paltry point on which to direct your insistence," she said sternly.

"Then oblige me in it," he insisted.

"You've endured much pain," she admitted.

"It was only a fall," he said nonchalantly.

"I want no part in adding to it."

"Then it won't be by your acquiescence, but by my demand."

"You make no demands of me, bleeder of men," she scoffed.

"My request then," he argued.

"Explain why you want this," she sighed.

"Because I can't trust someone who conceals herself from me, and I want to trust in you."

"Faithlessness," she nodded. "Forgotten as you've been, by both agents who bet on your concocted annihilation. I can expect nothing else… I relent in this, in only this. So we must step outdoors, this domicile is sized to your particular proportions," she said, gesturing toward the front of the house and politely leading him to the main door. Once outside the house she turned to him mournfully.

"This is avoidable," she reiterated.

"Avoidance has never been one of my particular strengths," he affirmed.

"No," she sighed. "It is not." She reached her open palm gently towards him and gestured for him to grasp it. He did so firmly. "Lightly, just the pads of the fingers," she instructed clearly. "When you are overcome, release your grip," she said. He nodded. 

She looked at him one last time with a free flowing mixture of admiration and pity, until the sockets of her eyes receded back into a deep and vacuous void that unified almost immediately as the two apertures grew and merged into one. Simultaneously, her height arose with a continuous growth that stretched at her legs, back, and neck, elongating at a pace that either rendered his mind too slow to follow, or was in itself too rapid to visually track. As she grew taller her wideness remained unchanged until, with an unexpected snap, it narrowed and collapsed into one long crack of flowing air that sparked in spontaneous eruptions whose frequency exceeded his steadily quickening pulse. He could no longer tell which changes were morphing first, the burgeoning being before him rendered irrelevant illusions like sequentiality to be as untraceable as the number of moments in a day. As shapes and shades of hues unseen by common man erupted from the spectacle, recognizable elements began to piece through the formless mass.

There was flame, blue and brilliant as a windswept meadow of Delphiniums on a cloudless afternoon. Brightly it burned into an unsealed circle whose size slightly contracted in conjunction with its formation of a clone beside it. Then they both repeated the action, and again with more rapidity. Until after the length of three unheld breaths, a growing arch of burning circles, bright and luminous as balls of metal freshly forged towered over him as a man might to an insect of peculiar interest. Especially so, when the burning circles were all within a blink granted their own depth, and with it stared into him like a horde of eyes, piercing through the layers of cloth and flesh that had always and until this terrifying instant, shielded his innermost mind from the pryings of powers beyond his own.

And just as the blazing gaze of this entity too colossal to comprehend had focused its sights upon him, he released his hold on whatever it was still meeting the grasp of his hand, and awoke lying next to the crooked creek with a desperate gasp of one nearly drowned. The immediate urge to wet the ground trumped all importance of compiling his mostly remembered dream, but just after he relieved himself from a pressure proportional to one many days in the making, he considered the Weaver's cryptic words of dubious instructions, and decided before any amount of calmness could be restored, to regard them all as sacrosanct.

*** *** ***

Continued...