• Peigra's Blog:

Calton's Shadow, Pt 9

By: Peigra

“You were not here yesterday,” was repeated over and over again, and Peigra tried to pat each head that wailed at her, standing knee-deep in the water as she passed out kisses to soothe them. The complaints were getting more and more prominent, but there was little she could do.

In the two months since her strange acceptance into something deeper than her previous time, in the Before, with the clan, Peigra had treated, tried, talked and probably slept with everyone save the babies who were still inside their mothers, waiting to be born. She had seen to the broken bones, the sprains, mediated several matters with the hunters of her clan and the neighboring one over rights to a large kill, and Rira had kept quiet about most things, allowing Peigra to try her best.

Most mornings were spent in a frantic splashing now, as her time was becoming limited with the children and teaching them to swim despite her insistence they needed to learn. Many of the adults were also coming down, and the pregnant women were enjoying the water as they sat, the cooler water soothing some of their aches and the buoyancy a delight on their backs. Peigra was doing what she could to teach the children to swim, and all but two were already advanced enough to swim out on their own, without her accompanying them. They always came back to the sharp, carrying whistle that Rira, in the Before, had taught her, a quick noise that startled game and announced one’s position, but also was faster at getting the children’s attention.

The children were mostly fearless in the water, enjoying this new play time that had been given to them, but Peigra watched, with each day, as it was slowly being stripped of her as quickly as it had been given to her.

Gar had invited her, before the year was out, to come and be with him during the short suns, and Peigra did not want to go, but Rira insisted, and as Peigra was, in a sense, little more than an apprentice now, off she would go. She was trying to get all the swimming lessons she could to the children before other matters pulled her from the clan, but it was difficult, with Rira and the clan demanding her attention each day. It was a familiar tug that would only get tighter, but for now, it was still a noticeable one, and eventually it would fade.

For now, she wanted nothing more than to hide in Rira’s tent, and wish the whole matter had never surfaced or come to pass, but she had no say in it now. The clan had approved, the shamans had approved, and those voices who had not had not spoken. The neighboring clan across the twin streams, beyond the hot springs, had been the first informed, and Peigra had been formally introduced as Rira’s daughter.

“We need a new name for you,” Rira had kissed against Peigra’s hair one night, and the two women sat, forehead to forehead, eyes closed. “We cannot call you Ran`tk forever, for you were a little bug before, but you are something more now.”

“I like being Ran`tk.”

Rira’s head shook, and Peigra’s did as well with the motion. “A name will come, give it time. It would be easier if your name translated into Bahmi. Perhaps Gar will give you one when you go to him.”

Peigra did not mention that her given Bahmi name was the same as her grandmother’s nickname to her, and it had been easy to fall into both, as they were given by women who held strong positions in her life, past and present and future. She woke, she sat on the rock with Rira, a new herb in her hands each morning that chose itself from the others, and prepared to be inundated by water and the children’s cries as they came to the tent, waiting noisily.

She still wrapped her head in a turban, a lighter one of linen and not the heavy one she had come back to the sands with, as her skin was slowly becoming accustomed to the sun, but she was cautious, wearing long, linen drapes to keep her arms and back covered as best she could. One of the women had some linens she had not used for her baby when it had been born months earlier, and it was of a light weave that would keep most of the sun off but still allow air flow, and Peigra was grateful, and the woman probably did not notice the touch of magick against her back that Peigra slipped her. The woman, Kerti, was one of those women who was not meant to bear many, and had birthed and lost all her children to date, until now, and Peigra only smirked at Rira’s cackle when Kerti had announced her news.

The clan had several women Peigra’s age, or close enough, who she could chatter with when Rira gave her those rare moments to be a young woman, and Peigra was cautious, and up front, to the young men who had taken a liking to her odd hair and accent, that she was not available. There were no laws against shamans taking husbands or wives, or lovers for their needs and for children, but Peigra did not want that cluttering her life, not now, not when Rira had thrown her on her head into a wolf pack.

Baltik was enjoying this new status, as it meant Peigra was out more with the hunters, learning the clan’s boundaries and the landmarks again, and riding him out while he pranced on display. Rira’s warnings had been not only premature, but underestimated, and not a day passed when Peigra was not offered something, several times, for Baltik, or reminded that the herds in the south could benefit greatly from him. She smiled, she patted Baltik’s neck, and reminded them that the great hulk that they were admiring was only two, barely, in horse years, any older than she was now, and needed another year at least before she would consider anything.

Typical Baltik, he listened to the conversations, ears flicking back and forth, and always found one of her braids to nibble in the end, as if thanking her, or reclaiming her as his, she was never certain. It did feel good to be on him again, and able to ride out with the scouts, the hunters, with the groups of children on their lessons and get out of the clan’s holdings proper.

With any place that folk settled, there were always dangers, real, imagined and otherwise. The real were many of the beasts that walked the sands, and were hunted for food, such as the scorpions, and Peigra was honored to be present for the first kills of several of the clan’s young hunters. She had hoped they would take her on one of the large scorpion hunts, but Rira mentioned even she had not been on one, as they were considered too risky for the clan’s shaman. Peigra found it amusing that she was not allowed to watch them hunt the large beasts, but it was perfectly safe for her to openly gather new herbs to try on herself, and was being sent overland on a long journey to Gar, through territories that were known to harbor sandwalkers, and in large numbers. No, a scorpion hunt was too dangerous...she giggled over that. Danger came in many forms, and those in the Now had no idea what danger truly was.

She enjoyed going out, looking at how the lands had changed, and ensuring Baltik got both exercise and his bearings of the lands. The journeys also gave her a scope of how many people wanted Baltik to go south, and at least now she had some authority to prevent it, being that Baltik was her horse, and he had to stay with her to carry her all the places she was asked to go.

That and if she left him alone, he would, no doubt, become bloated from all the treats the children, and the hunters, were slipping him.

Each day, she tried to take one child, and focus on them, to see what they wanted, who they were, and know them better. Not a daunting task in itself, but singling out each child was more an issue as all the others tried to vy for who would be the one the following day.

Rira had Peigra taking the children out also on herbal walks, learning what plants were safe and did what, and each day the children were to give her five reasons why a certain plant was beneficial, or why it was to be avoided by all save the clan’s midwife or the shaman. They sat together, eating their meal, talking of what had happened that day, and Rira questioned Peigra for what she had observed as well. Rira, watching from afar, would also pick certain things that Peigra did during the day, and question her what she could have done differently, or why she chose that moment to do that thing. It was not a new thing for Rira to be doing, but its focus was, and was not the intense training of being a midwife in the Before, but becoming something more frightening in the Now for the entire clan.

A something that did not keep food in Peigra’s stomach long, as she was constantly on the go, from dawn to well past the sun’s setting, and often collapsed on her mat during the afternoon nap, and woke more exhausted than she had gone to sleep. Being initiated into the clan was one matter, being its midwife something entirely different, and becoming Rira’s heir was enough to unsettle anyone’s gut. There was also no getting around what she had been initiated into, and hoping they would see reason, or another worthy person, preferably a Bahmi.

Most often, Peigra’s days were spent in a flurry of being with the children, out on the hunts, pounding soaproot down in bowls so the laundry would be washed, soaking herbs for the elderlies and their tea, helping carve down whatever the hunters came back with, it was an endless string of chores that always had something else to take their place upon completion.

Making Baltik’s honey balls seemed to take the least time, and she had gotten the children addicted to them, albeit with a few different ingredients. The neighboring clan had several hives, and Peigra was willing to trade anything for some of the honey, and irritated when, as Rira’s heir, she was given the honey free. Coin was refused, offering to work some of the hives was refused, and the list went on and on, until Rira finally nudged her apprentice and looked at Baltik, and Peigra groaned. Gelding him would have been kinder than all the mares he was being whispered about, but she was firm and returned the honey, as Baltik was only two, and she needed him to grow, not be in the fields with the mares.

The jar of honey, more a large vase of it, arrived in her wake the following day, and the promise from the beekeeper’s son that, in the future, when Baltik was old enough, if two of their mares could be bred, it would be enough of an exchange. Rira deemed it a good trade, as there was no time limit on such an offer, and Peigra had little else in exchange that the other clan wanted...until the other clan discovered what Peigra was doing with the honey, and her honey balls. Small jars of honey began coming to the clan with more regularity, and the clean bowls, with honey balls in small batches, traded back. Rira only smiled as Peigra rolled her eyes at the whole matter.

The children were put out several times when Rira, and Nal from the neighboring clan, took Peigra on several journeys with them, up to the great wall where the sun went over each day and brought the shadows back to the lands to cool them. Here, protected by generations of scouring motions from the wind and sand, the walkway up to the caves set high into the wall kept them free of most of the sand, crawling critters and hazards of needing someone to take night watch duties.

The outcroppings were angled, and worn, so that their distances had be taken slowly, and not many save the boldest snake would have attempted it. The three caves were for a shaman taking one, their apprentices taking another and the main one for their gear and ceremonies, as well as the fire pit with its carved hole in the roof where the smoke could flow out. As an apprentice of sorts, Peigra’s duties were to keep the fire stoked at night, and ensure that the kettle set above it did not go dry, which meant several trips down to the spring at the base of the outcroppings with a small lantern. It was, no doubt, a test of both simplicity and orders, and she had no difficulties doing so. She had sat up whole nights before, boiling water over pitiful fires that she purposely kept low so others could not see them, cooled down a bit in the morning with cold water from a spring or pond nearby so that Baltik would not be drinking icy water but something with a little warmth to it.

Mostly, when the three of them went to the caves, it was to share Rira and Nal’s stories with Peigra, for as the shaman, she would need to know them. Sometimes Nal came with his apprentice, Chena, who was probably the same age as Berdel, but most of the lesson times, Nal came alone, and seemed to be more open when he did. Nal was also considerably older than Rira, and was brought by horseback to the caves, and taken back the same way, having bad knees that Peigra saw to during their meetings. He gave her a carved necklace of an odd black stone, which she was told was an odd ore that was sometimes found in the desert, and the greater honor was that it had been the necklace he had carved for his own initiation when he had been named shaman. It had an odd tingle-heat to it when Peigra put it on, and, not surprisingly, when she touched it, she had a memory of Nal, and something he had done in the past that he might have told her, he might not have, some of the memories of their doings in the caves were hazy.

Mostly, the three went to the caves, to share with Peigra the beginnings of the knowledge of what she would need for when Rira died or willingly stepped down. Even Nal was not immune to admitting there was always knowledge lost when a shaman died suddenly, and until others could come and take over the training of an apprentice, the clan often went in odd directions until order could be restored. The clan had done something of that when the old shaman, Teyal, had lost Rira’s brother, but gained her, and all that her brother had known had had to be ingrained into her quickly. Most of it done through a hazy set of rituals where Rira only spoke that she had been put to sleep for some unknown time, and there was all that she needed, ingrained into her mind.

Rira spoke, as did Nal, that it was only done in time of dire necessity, as had happened with the clan, as he had not lived another two years before dying, and Rira had become the new shaman. What little she had not known had been supplemented by the other shaman from other clans coming to help her learn. Peigra was a quick learner, but as both Nal and Rira were afraid, living in two lives, Peigra had a lot of mental baggage that might hinder her learning in other states, that being the hazy, otherworldly realm of the spirits.

As an Ascended, after it had all been done and Gar gone with the others, Rira and Nal had looked at one another and wondered if Gar had anticipated what the spirit walks would do to Peigra, and neither had had a clear answer. They did not take her to the caves without some trepidation, and both realized that if they were not careful, they might bring out more memories than either of them wanted to know of, let alone relive with the young woman. Rira and Nal were not immune to the implications that if Peigra went into a trance of something that had happened in Before, she might reveal things to come, things that might never pass, things that no one needed to know. The tormentations of Peigra’s troubled sleep...Rira watched them each night as the girl-woman tried to sleep, exhausted from the day’s doings and unable to sleep because of the memories of what she had seen in Before.

Nal and Rira approached the spirit journeys slowly, knowing they would undoubtedly listen, and see, things they would not only be frightened of, but be terrified to know if they came to pass. Peigra kept much of Before to herself, not wanting to contaminate the clan, but even they were not immune to knowing that the world was changing, and there were people, walking it now, who had lived the end and had come back in a desperate bid to stop it happening. Often, Peigra would just stare at the waters of Lake Solace and Rira had nothing to say to her, nor could the children dismiss the shadows on her face. Sometimes, there was little to be said but to leave the light-haired wraith in peace with her own tormentation from the past.

Tormentations that, as predicted, Rira and Nal were privy to, in a triad of terror and pain that hurt both of them to witness, and to know that Peigra had lived it. They sat silently as they lived through the aftermath of Port Scion’s fall, and the scattering of those who had brought about its fall and those who had fought against it, and those left in the aftermath on neither side who were caught in the waves of madness from it. The lands as they were in the Before, scarred, crops withered or burned to scare out the last remnants of resistance, the rivers, polluted with rotting things that needed no more remembrance, on and on the memories went.

Rira, and Nal, were not keen on extracting the memories from Peigra, but noted quickly that for each one they did, she could not remember it once she woke, and it was either locked tightly away, never to be seen again, or gone from her memory wholly. Whether it was a benefit or otherwise remained to be seen, and caution as well. There were some memories that neither of the shamans wanted to know, those being the fate of many of those around them, in the Before, and possibly the Now, dependant on how matters went.

They were in agreement that Peigra did not need them any longer, and despite the means that had brought her back as an Ascended, all those memories were destroying her, slowly, from within. The knowledge that it had to be averted a second time, that everything they worked for had to be done carefully, let it crash down on their heads and it was for nothing, and perhaps have to live it all a third time. Nal and Rira discussed, and in the end, decided it was best to extract the memories as they came, when Nal’s apprentice was not with them to hear what was being relived. Neither of them was young, and the memories would go no further than themselves, and relieve Peigra of the mental scars from a world that had not yet come to pass, might never do so, or could happen the next day.

They taught Peigra how to join the spirits, easily at first, the herbs used to do so ones that Peigra knew, and used rarely, often when field surgeries were necessary, and it did not matter what mental state the patient was in while someone was sawing off a leg to save them. She had done some of this, in the Before, with Rira, and knew the methods still, and Nal and Rira were pleased that the transition was easily done, but that was not saying that the spirits themselves accepted her.

As Peigra had already lived once, and had, in a sense, cheated death, the spirits were not certain what to make of her, and not readily open with speaking to her. She tried not to show too much open disappointment with that development, but as with Rira and Nal, was not wholly surprised. Through the trances with the herbs, Peigra could see them, but did not push them for questions.

What Rira and Nal had not counted on were the spirits of those in the Before questioning why Peigra had been chosen to live, and they had not. In an anomaly of oddness, there were some of Ascended who had been brought back and already gone back to the eternal sleep through battle or their own blades, and neither Rira nor Nal had an easy answer to that matter. Peigra muddled through as best she could, knowing some of them, recognizing others from glances, scurrying along battlefields with them, joined in their party as they raced along in retreats. Why had she lived when they had not been allowed to? Their worth was greater than hers.

As with many first encounters with such, some of them haunted her waking times, and Peigra kept to herself in the caves until she could learn to control their hauntings so that the clan would not be harmed. Save a handful of spirits, most understood that Peigra had had no choice in becoming an Ascended, and if had been given the choice, would have been incorporeal such as they were. Her family was not certain what to do with her, her Bahmi allies had made her something so wrong she felt alienated, and other than the places in the world that were yet untouched by the true darkness, everything was old and new at the same time.

With meditation, and some confrontations she did not tell Rira of, Peigra came to an agreement with the spirits that she knew, and even in their odd state, they had to see that she was what she was. The Ascended had no choice whom was brought back, unless there was some pattern that no one had discerned as yet. Through Peigra’s own memories, the spirits saw her coming death in the Before, and her sudden reanimation and the machine’s hiccuping malfunction that had shut it down temporarily. She gave them what memories she had, and her own fears and discomfort at having been brought back at all to nothing familiar, but everyone who was. She showed her attempts at contacting each bloodline of a fallen friend, and when no such family still existed, she hung a notice at each waypoint and city, letting others know. A small attempt at notoriety for someone who might be missed, and people had often laughed at her efforts.

The spirits did not, and any opposition was not wholly banished, but most of it was appeased by what she had done. Certainly others had not tried, or they had not revealed themselves, and despite the nightmares around her, Peigra had tried as best she was able, names scribbled on a well-worn piece of parchment, purchsed with dwindling coin that had to be rationed off for food and goods for Baltik and herself. With that agreement, it was easier to sleep at night, and the spirits, for their part, gave her what rest they could, still not pleased at their state, but other shaman had been through the ‘spirit hazing’ in the past and had succeeded.

That they were Bahmi, and Peigra was not, was obvious, and she tried not to frown too deeply.

The shaman of the past were also hesitant to speak with her, and it took some explanations from Rira as to what was happening in the clan to make them realize that Gar had some plan of his own that had not been revealed as yet. There was one particular spirit whose objections were the loudest, and Peigra did not understand why, but Rira would not allow Peigra to speak to the spirit. Whomever it was, Peigra did not recognize it, and only accepted that Rira knew the the spirit, and they were constantly having words with one another. It was difficult for Peigra to watch the spirit as it tried to interrupt every instruction, every last word, and Rira had apparently known it long enough to ignore it and its attempts at distraction.

Rira’s past and her respected position were, eventually, enough to ensure that the shaman of the past would speak to Peigra, and Nal’s reassurances were also a benefit, but the one spirit, the odd one that tormented Rira, was the only objection. There was no way to please it, and Peigra ignored it as best she could, as it only focused on Rira, and Peigra wondered if this was the father of Rira’s never-spoken-of child, the one that had been born somehow and nothing more spoken of it. All Peigra knew was that Rira had had one child, a boy, a girl, that had never been answered, nor what had happened to it.

Peigra’s return to the clan after many of the times in the cave was always with some trepidation, as she feared she would come into the clutch of tents and cooking and children shrieking around chasing one another and the spirits would try to harm them all. The children were always there at her feet, as they were Rira’s, when they returned, eager to know where she had been, what she had been doing, and, as always, eager for honey balls to mash into odd shapes between their fingers before consumption.

Nal invited Peigra to the neighboring clan several times, and the reception was a bit cooler than Rira’s, but the clan against the lake had had months to know Peigra, from Rira’s first visions and then in person. That Peigra was not Bahmi was the first objection to what she was being trained to become, and Nal reminded them all that Peigra had been appointed by Gar himself, and if there had been any objections, they needed to have been spoken months earlier when the old man had been at the clan, not now, when he was not present to speak his reasons and Peigra was being sniped at. Nal was old, but he did not allow such whispers, and called the entire clan out to discuss the matter around the great fire, and many had their say.

She understood their objections, as Peigra herself had the same ones; she was not Bahmi, she was Ethian from her father’s side, and they were allies of the Bahmi, but Peigra was not Bahmi-born. Nal reminded the clan that some of their greatest allies had not been born of the women in the desert, nor had some of their own been as trusted and forgiving as they had been reared to be. Gar had his reasons, they had been voiced to all the other shamans, the nods, the objections, they had all been discussed, and in the end, the choice had been made. Peigra was part of the clan beneath Rira, and would be their shaman, and even the children had accepted her, and the other clans had an obligation to do the same, Nal reminded them all.

It was the same words Peigra knew she would be hearing again and again with each clan she encountered, and it was the same as when she had been in Before, when people had looked at her, complaining she was too young, too short, too slow with a sword to keep herself alive, a liability, a hazard to them all. She had heard many of those whisperings when she had been on the farm, listening to Berdel complain about her father, and the mother she did not remember. It was odd that her father’s heritage was the one that was helping to unite her with the Bahmi but not her mother’s, when Purda had whispered to her that it was her mother’s bloodline which was the more important one.

She had also written to Purda, and Diel, to let them know where she was, what she was doing. No one had warned her that she was to be hidden, and the messages were taken via Bahmi, and personally handed off to Purda, so Peigra knew they got there when return notes began arriving, often in large bundles as not every messenger reached Rira’s clan on a regular basis. It gave her something to look forward to, and to save and read slowly, hearing her grandmother’s voice in her head as she read, and often she shared them with Rira and they spoke of matters in Freemarch.

Purda had mentioned that there had been several men who had come to the farm, looking for Peigra, and had described them, but she did not recognize their descriptions. Perhaps other Ascended that Peigra had known had been brought back, and were eager to see her? That did not make sense, as the Ascended who came back were often so eager to fight again, to continue what they had been doing, they left Meridian quickly to do so. The other half were fractured, as Peigra was, not certain to continue, not eager to give everything and their lives to a cause which had seemed lost from the start, unstoppable due to several key figures whose very actions had doomed them all. Why would someone have searched the farm for her? Why not Meridian, and Temur would have explained where Peigra was, unless she had misinterpreted the herb journey for exile, and she had set the scroll down and gone to the water to sit, staring out at it.

Somewhere, along its left side, far downstream and out of sight against the harsh sun above, the farm bordered the road that ran along the lake, and the horses were running in the fields, foals were being born, horses paraded around to be sold. Purda was probably in the great kitchen, cuddling the new baby, and Diel was kneading bread with some of the apprentices, and everything else was progressing into summer.

It felt odd, after several months, to think of the farm, and the encounter there that had, ultimately, sent her to the sands to hide. Temur had known, and she thanked him silently for his actions of getting her out of Meridian. The urge to go back and see them, one last time, was not as great as it had been, not with the children creeping up behind her on the sands, wondering what she was staring at, and one by one, they came to surround her, sitting as quietly as they could, leaning against her and each other, watching the water. Many of the parents, and Rira, watched the scene with odd smiles on their faces.

The children had accepted Peigra, and loved her for what she was, part of the clan, and Rira only smirked that there were finally no more objections to what Peigra was going to be. The children certainly would have been the ones to whine the loudest, and their acceptance had been the greatest benefit to the fair-haired wraith. Nal’s clan was a bit more tolerant of Peigra, but did not openly spit at Peigra’s boots any longer, though from the looks, some wanted to. Gar had chosen her, and if they had an issue, it was with Gar, not Peigra, and Nal, and Rira when she had gone to the other clan to visit, both shaman had reminded the clan that Gar’s decision had not been Peigra’s. Their issue was with Gar, not Rira’s apprentice.

Two months slipped into three, and then four, and by five months, and Rira decided that it was time for Peigra to go to the caves alone, and return when she felt she had learned some important nugget of past Bahmi knowledge from the shaman spirits of old. “You’re just sending me off so you can peek into my herbs and help yourself to the fat, dried ones.”

“You judge me wrong,” Rira said, but there was a smirk in the old woman’s eyes. “You are ready to make your first spirit journey without me.”

“But what if something goes wrong?”

“I will know, Nal will know, we will come and bring you back.”

Not the encouragement Peigra had wanted, but she had eaten a great meal and began to fast the next day, taking one pack of supplies with her, and had gone over the sands, leaving Baltik behind with great reluctance, but knowing it was safer. She did not want him left unattended beneath the caves while she went into a meditation trance, and he would be well babied by the clan in her absence.

She made herself comfortable in the smallest of the three caves, just herself and not wanting to clutter the large ones with echoes, and spent a day thinking, watching, just sitting, waiting for the sun to retreat and cool the lands.

The bowl of herbs soaking at the edge of the cave had been sun-warmed and now, cooling as the sun was gone, shadowed by the flickers from the fire that would be out without tending, Peigra took it up and slowly began to drink. She set the bowl down at the first signs of her fingers beginning to feel the tingle of disconnection, as she did not want to spill it, and rested herself against the wall of the cave to wait for the spirits to make themselves known to her.

As always, it did not take them long to find her, and she welcomed them, realizing that her body was below and she was with them. They took her over the clan, watching as mothers put their children to sleep, the elderlies were cackling over something, several playing games with one another to pass the time, and Rira, sitting in her tent, looking up as she sensed Peigra’s presence and made a shooing motion with her hand.

They flew off, over the great lake’s surface, and Peigra saw the lands from a new perspective, saw them despite the darkness. They flew over Nal’s clan, and went along the right shoreline, to the other clans that were camped there, and then inland to see where the others were located. Peigra knew some of the landmarks, and was pleased that those clans had survived.

Along the dunes, the peaks of the eroded cliffs and upthrusts of old mountains, now cracked and islands in their own right, Peigra went with the spirits, looking at the Bahmi clans, one by one, and touching each shaman who recognized her at the clan, and was shooed on her way. They had apparently been expecting her at some point, and she could not laugh as she was now, but later she knew she would. It was exhilarating to be in such a view, even in the darkness, to see everything.

Fortune’s Shore had not changed much, save that now there was a great deal of segregation, and Peigra tried not to frown too deeply at that. Those lines had been drawn in the Before, and were as rigid now as they had been in her alternate past, and she was not going to be the one to tear them down. Guardian and Defiant alike had their own ghosts to battle, and she was not going to be the one to demand a truce of either, not when either side could not see past the manipulations of others and put aside differences. She had met some of the manipulators and some of the peacemakers, and at the time, both arguments had had valid, solid foundations of truth to them, until one was revealed for its scheming, and the other hopeless for reconciliation.

As she had expected, they ended their journey at Gar’s clan, far to the east, near the blighted lands that had been destroyed unknown generations before by greed and pride and magick. Gar had a pair of bowls filled with water, one for himself, the other for an unseen guest, and Peigra took the meaning and ‘sat’ herself down on the waiting mat, and could not lift the bowl, but sat and watched Gar drink his own. “When you return next, you will learn how to make the water ripple,” he told her, and she frowned at that. How did a spirit make something physical move? Was that possible? The thought intrigued her, and he dismissed her as the others had, and she followed the wave of spirits back to her own body, back to the caves, the clan, and Baltik, who would be impatient to get out with the hunters again and do something.

She had expected to find Rira and Nal there, trying to wake her, but there was nothing but the spirits, hurrying her back to her body, and she wondered how long she had been gone. Around her, the world was permanently dark, but she could see as if it were daylight, and she had no idea how much time had passed.

Coming back to her silent body was a bit more tricky than she had expected, for the want to stay and be able to flit around was tempting, and she looked to her body, and observed herself as others saw her. Her hair was coiled on her head as she slept, the odd ivory-gold color shining by the last of the light from the coals that had not extinguished, so she had been gone some time, judging from them. She was short by Bahmi standards, and too thin, she saw that now, and needed to eat more, as Rira was often chiding her to do so.

It took a bit of trying before she found how to root herself in her body again, and she had an odd moment when she was half-spirit, half-body and could lift one arm and make it flail about but the rest of her was incorporeal. She fitted herself back inside herself, an odd phrase, and came to open her eyes, seeing the brightness of the sands outside the cave.

The first she heard was the hissing, the whinnying cry, and the smell of the coals. One was familiar, the smell of fading wood smoke and her stomach rumbled, and she had expected it to be out, and now that she looked at it, it was, and it was cold as she held her hand over it. A day? Two? How long had she been gone?

Peigra moved slowly, getting accustomed again to moving with her body as opposed to without it, and took some hesitant steps towards the edge of the cave.

Baltik was below, riderless, and Peigra stared at him as he gave a great stamping in the sand, and called up to her again. Why was Baltik here and not Rira? She looked around, wondering if Rira had been injured, and then she let her ears expand.

She looked south, across the sands, past the springs and the small channels they dug into the silty muck, and was not certain what the cry was that escaped her, if it was human or something else.

Hovering near Nal’s camp was the reason she had been brought back, and she took a step out from the cave and miscalculated her steps and fell down, coming down hard on her side, in front of Baldik, on the sand, which was not as forgiving as it looked. He reached down, nibbling at one of her braids, and she winced, knowing something had been injured, but there was no time.

She turned, wincing, trying not to scream with pain; something was broken, and she would know later. Baltik was down on the sand beside her, letting her crawl onto his back slowly and she felt something against her hand he was nudging towards her. She clutched at it blindly and then at his mane as he righted himself.

Slowly, he began to move, with the odd gait that he had adopted in the Before when she had been too tired to do anything else but strap herself against him to prevent herself from falling off while dozing. She had nothing to hold onto, as Baltik was without even a halter; what had happened? She knew what had happened, she had only to look up, beyond the scrubby palms and the shrubs and Baltik crashed through the brush and the stream he cleared as Peigra cried out at the bounce as they came down. She nearly lost whatever she was holding onto, and Baltik, but he had no time.

They were on their way, and only the world around her now knew how much time had passed and what could be done.

Baltik was taking her, as he had done before, to a rift, the terror from above that had, one by one, exhausted even the greatest warrior who bragged there was nothing that they feared. Peigra stared at it, clutching at him, at the thing in her hand she had not looked at, and pressed her head down.

Would she be in time to save them?