Kiravi's Travelogue Ch. 11

"What is it, lover?" Serina cooed, letting my head drop back to the furs and caressing my cheek with her other hand.

"Wha...you didn't...?" I sputtered, the aftereffects of my release still rebounding through my mind and body.

"I didn't what, lover? I certainly, um, had another...moment," she said with a shy blush.

Had she really seen or felt nothing? Had I even truly seen anything? Already, the vision and the panic attached to it seemed to slip from my mind, replaced just as quickly by mind-numbing exhaustion. "It's nothing. Nothing." I sighed, and the moment she settled beside me and smiled, any lingering trace of panic or confusion slipped away.

"Well, we had our fun without him," Serina giggled. "But what do you say we move back next to him?"

I rolled my eyes but smiled, "He is warm, isn't he? Even though he was too drunk to take care of us."

She laughed, and we pulled off our outer garments before tucking ourselves in beside Kiravi. He stirred, instinctively shifting and molding himself to us. Serina cooed gently in my arms, and Kiravi's burly and scarred arm hung over both of us as he cuddled me from behind. It may seem ridiculous now, supposedly dear readers, but I simply could not focus any of my thoughts on any of the things that, at that moment, set Serina apart from any other young maiden. Life was as good as it had ever been.

That is until I woke up, and Serina was gone.

I bolted upright and leaped towards the door without even thinking of Kiravi's still-sleeping body. In just a bandeau and loincloth, I flew into the cold night, primal terror filling my veins. My thoughts tried to settle on the recent memory of our lovemaking just hours before, but my thoughts skittered away from it like a rabbit on hot desert stones. Only questions forced themselves to the front of my mind. Where was my lover? What had happened to her? Who had done this?

Something was drifting out of the dark sky, fat and light like ash from a poorly managed fire. Instead of hot and smoky, it was cold and wet, and it clung to my sweaty skin. It coated the ground and the huts around me and collected on the drooping pine boughs above and around me. Niknik had followed me and chuffed in annoyance when one of the flakes landed on his nose.

A light cast rippling shadows across the village from somewhere amongst the dwellings. Instinct drew me forward, feet numb and frigid in the strange substance, but I had to find Serina. No one else was stirring, and this strange and unnatural weather deadened the sounds of my footfalls.

A burning, red-orange figure stood at the edge of the village, towards the banks of the river. Her - and I was sure it was a woman - hair swirled around her head in an unfelt wind. It took only a moment for my mind to recognize the silhouette as Serina's.

She trotted towards the river but soon froze in place. My insides lurched, not from a sudden spell, but in the way I'd felt the few times I'd leaped from a high rock into the waters of the Nekoar as a child. I stumbled, my limbs feeling too light, but I managed to half-trip and half-hop my way towards my lover. Niknik grumbled nervously, scrabbling in the dirt as ineffectually as I. Flakes of what I would later learn was snow hovered in the air, no longer falling and swirling away from every one of my panicked breaths. The gorge rose in my throat from the same and unknowable force, but I finally managed to get within arm's reach of her.

A dark silhouette emerged from between two huts with arms outstretched, and I wished that I'd brought one of my knives with me. They reached Serina before I could, unaffected by the unnatural power, and cradled my unmoving lover. All at once, the force, the burning light from Serina's skin, it all disappeared, and Serina and the other shape slumped to the ground.

"Get away from her," I hissed, lurching forward now that I had my feet underneath me once more. Niknik bristled beside me.

They recoiled, though not before ensuring I was cradling Serina's limp head, "I meant no offense," the words were halting and heavily accented Anghoreti and sounded male, "I did not want her to hurt herself."

I cupped Serina's cheek and looked into her thin face. She was warm but not feverish, and clothed much as I was. "Serina...Serina, can you hear me?"

She murmured something, and her eyes fluttered open, "Leotie? Where am I? It's cold and wet," for a moment, when her lids fluttered open, the magic from her eyes pulsed with every imaginable color before returning to their usual, molten hue.

"It's alright, darling. I'll get you back to sleep," I cooed, and Serina seemed to be fading back towards unconsciousness.

"What's wrong with her?" The male asked, and I could finally make out enough of his face to realize that he was the strange totem-bearer.

"There's nothing wrong with her," I snapped back, "She's a seeress. The gods touched her, but she doesn't understand all of her powers," I narrowed my eyes and glared at him. Moonlight and the flickering fires the Kroyu kept lit at the center of the village revealed more of his features. His eyes seemed fairly normal, perhaps a bit large like mine, but his skin was a deep and dark bluish gray. All four of his canines were just long and fang-like enough to protrude past his lips, and his jaw and face were narrower than the average human's. The snow caught in his obsidian-black hair and along the tips of his long and pointed ears.

"I meant no offense," he repeated, though he wasn't sheepish or deferent, and his large and dark eyes bored into me.

"That power...was it yours or hers?" I asked, Serina already all but asleep again.

He cocked his head, confused, "Mine. You have not," he searched for an Anghoreti word, found it, "You have not met a shaper?"

Half-remembered childhood stories flickered through my mind, about Bhakhuri with powers different from the mages, priests, and shamans. "Never. My tribe was small and had none."

"I am the only one here," the male muttered, "The touch of the Huri is...especially strong on my soul." He reached out, hesitated, then brushed some of Serina's black hair away from her face. Niknik and I both scowled. "Just as the touch of the gods is strong on her. You should get her inside."

The following words came tumbling out in a fierce torrent after the day's frustrations and the sudden fear of seeing Serina missing, "What is happening here?! With this place, and your people, and the Undying One? What is it doing to her?" I was surprised to feel a hot tear slip down my cheek and snarled at myself for it. "None of this makes any sense. You bear their sacred totem, so you must know something."

He sighed, his breath misting and swirling away amongst the silent flakes, "I can speak to you. Tomorrow. Take care of your friend first."

I bit back another angry and desperate tirade and nodded. We could go another night without answers, but no more. A part of me - the largest part, dearest readers - still wanted to take off again, into this wilderness and away from the madness of this land. Let us find yet another home or face our foes back in Anghoret. Anything, anything, but this place of secrets and death.

But I could not and would never leave my new home, the one in Kiravi and Serina's hearts, so I would have to stay another day.

"What is your name?" I asked.

He paused and helped me lift Serina's petite body, "Moha. Find me by the river tomorrow."

I padded away, cradling the sleeping Serina, and eased us back under our furs and blankets. That great lout Kiravi hadn't even seemed to notice but just wrapped us both up again in his grasp. Serina smiled in her sleep, content, unaware, but I could not. I neither smiled nor slept, the sudden burst of fear and the new pit of questions swirling inside me to ensure I could think of nothing else.

So, well before the sun rose over their village and the lush hills, I extricated myself from our tangle of loving limbs and clothed myself more warmly. The puffy snow had stopped, leaving the town and hills dusted in white. It crunched beneath my feet and Niknik's paws and gleamed in the light of the twin moons and scattered stars. Ignoring it, tangled in my thoughts, I picked my way down to the river's edge to meditate before Moha's offered meeting.

I hadn't told Kiravi or Serina yet, but it had been a struggle to speak to the Kwarzi since we'd found the first totems on the mountain track. When Serina returned from the first meeting with Tukyo, I realized just how deep the problem went but still said nothing. Existing in a land where the Kwarzi were distant and muted terrified me, and I refused to let my lovers see that fear.

Niknik alone here.

Not alone. I thought back, brushing snow away from a large rock sitting above the sluggish water. I'm here.

Other spirits hide.

I know, I frowned. I want to know why.

It ate them. Niknik stated flatly and chuffed in the real world for effect. Bones-in-water doesn't want it to eat him.

And you do? I teased, ruffling his ears, but a shock of fear ran through me. Was the...thing that Serina saw more than just a symbol buried in a vision?

They can try. He grumbled into my mind.

I settled onto the stone with Niknik leaning against my feet. In some way, I wished Serina was awake to lend me her power, but that would mean showing her my weakness. So, that morning, it was Niknik and me.

And, apparently, Bones-in-Water.

He swirled around me from the moment I closed my eyes and muttered my prayer, brushing his non-existent limbs against my arms. I still had no idea who he was or where he'd come from, but that didn't really matter. Did it? With the same strange auras and lingering evil of this place, I could only think about calming my nerves.

Greetings, grandfather. I reached out to him with my mind, as I did from time to time. He never responded, but it was still a comforting ritual.

Bones-in-water swirled around in front of me once more and perched on the stone before my feet. His featureless head swayed back and forth, curious, and he curled his wing-like limbs beneath and around himself. It was wrong, I thought then, to think of any of the Kwarzi as animals or mortals, but I couldn't help but think of him as some sort of curious bird.

You are alone today, I thought to him, half-statement and half-question. I will honor you, Bones-in-Water, lost from your hilltop spring, untethered and wandering. I focused inward, letting more of my innate magic seep out to feed the wayward spirit.

Two more Kwarzi, small and snuffling like newborn rodents, crept from the mud along the riverbank and scuttled across the snow. Foam-on-Stones and Shredded-Moss. I murmured, knowing their names in an instant. They huddled beside Bones-in-Water as if expecting reprisal or attack. I focused more on them, pushing them my gratitude.

You are remembered. You are honored. I give you my notice, in exchange for your power. I mumbled the words, inwardly marveling that, in only two seasons, I'd learned to commune with the Kwarzi no matter where I was.

The two local spirits swirled forward to taste my gift, fearing it would be snatched away from them. Like Bones-in-Water, I felt snatches of their strange minds and emotions when they touched me. I trembled, sweat pricking to life on my brow and temples. Fear. Gut-wrenching, bowel-loosening terror. Insane and vicious hunger. Desperate resignation.

"You would do well not to spend too much time in communion with our spirits," Moha had approached and startled me. "Some go mad."

"Your whole land is mad," I snapped back, my meditations ending and the Kwarzi flickering away.

"That is...it is true." He picked his way down to the river's edge and splashed water onto his face. He wore a heavy cloak of furs over his simple leather tunic, all cut from beasts I did not know of. "So. You are here. You have spent your moment with the spirits. Your seeress has asked her questions of Tukyo. What else could you want to know?"

I grimaced at him as he sat on another large stone. "What do you mean? I want to know everything about the Kroyu."

His eyes, irises indistinguishable from his pupils they were so dark, bored into me. "Why? Why would it be so important to you?" His eyes narrowed, and he smirked, "Do you intend to stay here?"

I bristled, but his pointed words revealed precisely the source of my discomfort. Kiravi and Serina - Big Man and Magic Girl, according to Niknik - were my home, my band. But we needed a real, physical home too, and there was no going back to Anghoret.

"Maybe," I conceded bitterly. "We cannot turn back to Anghoret; we told you that at the first feast."

"And you find yourself here," he sighed and looked back at the waters. "In the Undying One's lands."

"Yes. And should we stay here, or should we keep..."

"Running?"

"Yes."

Moha pulled a twig from the snow and began to scratch something into the ground. The morning sun had yet to breach the Yavloni mountains, but the eastern sky glowed with the promise of a new day. It provided just enough light to see that he was scratching out a map in the snow and mud.

"This is the border you crossed, the Gavicha Creek, and this is Yavlon to the east." He pointed with the twig," Gavic runs up along the coast from the Gavicha all the way up to the Zimpal, and all but the south and the eastern highlands belong to the Undying One's chieftains."

"And how would those tribes react to us crossing their lands?" I asked, already thinking of how I could mask our trails.

He paused, choosing his words slowly and with great care. "Kiravi al-Kiral and Serina al-Wakh would be allowed to travel north, but only if they announced themselves to the chieftains."

"And me?" I could already feel the anger surging in my breast.

"It would be at his whim. But there is a reason so many of the Kroyu are not Men." He sighed, "I hear tales that there are other tribes like us in the far north and the Yavloni hills, but I have not seen them for several years."

I ground my teeth together, and Niknik bristled in solidarity. "So we're trapped. We cannot go back, or north, and Yavlon will be impassable for months."

He nodded, "You gave a great gift to our people, Leotie, but I am ashamed that we do not have good news for you."

Blood thumped in my ears, and I ruffled Niknik's ears to calm both of us, "Why, Moha. Why are you sent up here to suffer and die?"

He shrugged and brushed a few strands of hair from his face, "Because we are not Men. The Undying One killed the gods, the Huri, the spirits, all of it, and permits only Men to receive the greatest bounty of our lands."

"So he is a man?"

"I....I do not know," Moha admitted. "Perhaps he once was. It is not a question that we ask. I have seen him only once up close. He is not a man any longer." He looked up at the mountains. "I am ashamed, and I wish the Kwarzi and the gods that remain had not brought you to this place."

"But we are here," I grumbled. "Maybe we could wait until summer, then pass through Yavlon?"

Moha sat silent for a long time, picking at his map with the twig. "If the Undying One were to learn of your presence and that you did not announce yourselves to his chieftains, it would be the Kroyu who would pay the price."

"So don't tell him."

Moha frowned, "Leotie, he is a god. He likely already knows that you are here." He absently scratched through the map, churning up the snow and mud, "You can wait to decide, at least until we leave for the spring festivals on the coast."

I nodded slowly, but it wasn't my decision. Kiravi was our leader, my leader, and I would tell him what Moha had finally shared. "Why wouldn't the others tell me any of this?"

"Because they are afraid for you," he said. "We are all outcasts here, trapped as you are now. It is the way of things, ever since the war between the gods."

I wouldn't let myself be afraid, except maybe for Serina as she tried to understand her powers. "And you? Are you afraid?"

I'm not," Moha stated. With the light brightening, it was only then that I saw the scars all along his hands and the parts of his face not covered by his cloak's hood. His skin was so overwhelmed by mottled, puckered scars that it was hard to tell which made up more than the other. "I've...experienced deeper, darker things. Before the Kroyu found me."

I forced myself not to shudder or let any waver into my voice. Something in the back of my mind, some primal and ancestral terror, screamed in anguish. "You weren't born to the Kroyu?"

"No. They found me. In Yavlon. Born to some poor mountain tribeswoman and a Huri."

"How could you survive up there as a child? As an infant?" I asked the question, dear readers, that, to this day, I wish I hadn't.

Moha stiffened and turned entirely away from me. His scarred hand emerged further from his cloak, and I could tell that his limb had been broken more times than I cared to count. This time, instead of feeling a nauseating lightness in my stomach, his force pressed on my limbs and made the blood thump painfully in my temples. Niknik growled in confusion and struggled to stand.

"I was their plaything, probably from birth. The Huri are always trying to force their way into our world, and they must've found a crack between the worlds up in the mountains." Snow started to rise from the ground around us, blustering about in the faint breeze. Droplets of water swirled up from the rocks in the stream, suspended by Moha's power. "A crack that they took me through, back to their realm." He lowered his hand, the snow drifted away, and the weight fell from my body. "Either I escaped or was no longer of interest to them. And this, all of this," he gestured at his scarred body and the powers he possessed, "Is my gift."

Words escaped me, and the fury inside me swirled and mixed with a horrific revulsion that my mind couldn't fully comprehend. Once, twice, again and again, I tried to utter any response, but nothing came.

He turned back to look at me, a saddened smile etched on his scarred face. "You and your friends are trapped here for now, Leotie, and I'm sorry. But it could be far, far worse."