Slade watched as shadows, chased by the sun, slowly stretched forth from the Clash-Mounts. They crept over fields of shattered stone that laid between Heldair and the mountains. A warm wind washed over the expansive moraine, tickling the webbing of her wings. The sensation sent a soft shudder down her back. Her legs dangled over a drop that would kill anybody who didn’t know how to glide. While the cleft-strider was still being loaded, she climbed the beast and now sat on the edge of the crenellation that lined its top. She doubted the Walaki would have approved, but the lore that enshrouded her kept her hidden from their eyes.

Slade liked high places. To be up high was to see further, to assess escape routes, points of attack, and incoming threats. It was how one survived an upbringing like hers. Verticality was your friend when the streets wanted you dead. Stay up high, remain unseen. Find an abandoned watch tower or zerok nest to hole up in. There had been many of those in Tahlkin. She remembered all of her hiding places. She could form a mental map of the streets and plot where they were. If she stepped into a room and closed her eyes, she could describe from memory alone, everything that was in it. Her mind, sharper than most, did not allow her to miss anything. She forgot almost nothing.

She watched as the Walaki ran about the decks below her. Through observation, she learned what each of their names and titles were. Zaki was responsible for tying down all loose items on this deck. Faylosh, along with Yakto, Weron, and Belian, was responsible for welcoming the passengers. Quan and Meryl were “stridesingers”. Slade didn’t know what exactly a stridesinger did because that lore was a tightly guarded secret among the Walaki. She only knew it had something to do with getting the cleft strider to move. In a short time, she familiarized herself with a third of the crew just from watching and listening. It is what she did: watch and listen. Stick to the shadows, remain unseen.

After Zaki finished tying down a barrel, he ran off. Slade gazed back toward the Clash-Mounts and felt a knot in her stomach. It was a trill of both excitement and dread. It had been a long time since she felt the latter. She wasn’t accustomed to it. Few things phased her anymore. Not even the encounter with the stormspawn made her feel this way. Somewhere beyond the mountain range laid The Stillwater. It waited for her like an old friend.

Memories flashed before her eyes. She was a little girl again, standing waist-deep in the marsh’s water. Her feet touched nothing, yet she stood in the bottomless pond nonetheless. The water itself held her up. Crying. Somebody was crying. Wisps of blue curled around her feet, blood mixed with the water. Her younger brother was with her. Lepin wailed as two corpses floated face-down in front of them. It was from these bodies that the blood came. It radiated from them like the rays coming from the sun’s corona. Lepin’s shrieks filled the marsh’s silence as he rocked back and forth, kneeling over one of the bodies, their mother.

He shook her and begged her to wake up, but she didn’t answer. She kept floating alongside their father in silence. Without warning, their father’s body plunged into The Stillwater’s depths. Their mother’s body followed suit. Something plucked them both from the surface and dragged them down in the blink of an eye. All that was left, were two orphaned children.

How many times have I visited? Slade thought, after returning to the present. The question was rhetorical of course, she already knew the answer. Her memory was near perfect. She could recall every event in her life with unprecedented amounts of detail, everything except her life prior to her parents' deaths. For all intents and purposes, The Stillwater was her birthplace. Neither she nor Lepin remembered what their lives had been like before then. It was just her now. It had been for many years. Lepin was gone, taken by the Bane decades ago.

She looked down at the docks and saw that the last of the cargo was being carried up the ramp. Sighing, she stood up and made her way back to the deck. After a few leaps, she swung herself around several posts, spread her wings and glided onto a deck. Out of habit, she made a quick note of all possible escape routes, as well as all possible ambush points. Then she let her veil drop, startling one of the Walaki crew, whose beads clacked against his face as he jumped back. Instead of answering his stammering, she continued to pace along the deck. The Stillwater awaited. She was coming home.

***

Tuls was elated to be standing inside an actual surge-beast. He had dreamt about them as a child, had heard of them spoken of in stories, and read about them in books. But to actually be standing inside one surpassed all of his expectations. To his channeler’s senses, the beast confused and evaded perception. He could look at a tree, that, to all external appearances, appeared to be in good health, and immediately know it was rotting on the inside. Or he could see toxicity in swamp water that was otherwise placid.

To describe these things to those who did not have the eyes was fruitless. How does one describe sound to the deaf? But the strider was new. Its external appearance, part stone and part crystal, was exotic enough to see. However, its “nature” both confused and tantalized his senses. There was something akin to “life” in its pulsings, but it was unlike anything he had ever felt. In a way, he was reminded of the ebbings emanating from Meldohv's shell, rumored to be an egg that incubated a deepwater eel. Some have postulated whether the eels themselves were a form of surge-beast. Now that he stood inside one, he could see why such a hypothesis came about.

The cleft-strider felt less like an animal and more like a force of nature. Its slow, lumbering gait belied its sheer power and deliberation. The Walaki carved ornate hallways and channels into the shell of the cleft-strider until the beast resembled a walking palace. Strung between its arches were numerous hammocks for lounging.

After leaving Mola in the stalls located in the lower deck, it was tempting to go off and tour the massive creature and watch the Walaki crew at work. He knew full well they would never allow him to see how they controlled the monolith, so any workers he saw would be doing menial tasks such as cleaning the decks, securing loose items, and turning the nytic lanterns. How did he, a newly licensed relos, get to come along on an expedition like this?

It was because of him, he thought, The La'ark doesn't trust him, so she needs me...because of what I am.

Channelers inherited a sense that those who lacked the glow did not have. This has earned them both admiration and scrutiny in equal amounts throughout history. But there exists a very rare breed, often feared and detested more than the rest. They were the ones society was quickest to suspect, to judge and persecute. Loskia, they called them, “thought readers”. It wasn’t true of course, nobody could read the mind of another as one reads an open book. A loskia could only sense the raw emotions lying underneath the facade. In the way one could smell an aroma and know what fragrance it was, a loskia could “sniff” the sentiments of another being.

“Do not tell the world what you can do Tuls,” his father often said, “enshroud that secret. Hold it in your wings and enshroud it. The world calls itself 'civil', but it still fears what you can do.”

He lost count the number of times his father espoused this dire warning. To be one of the loskia was to be deserving of ignominy. Even those whom he thought he could trust with his secret, changed after he revealed it to them. They spoke to him less, made excuses for their distance, even knowing full well he was capable of seeing through their lies. Fear and hatred of the loskia would always be ingrained into the deepest roots of the civilized world. There were even eras where people were fearful to show too much empathy, for the act of seeing the pain behind a fake smile was enough to earn one the label of mind-reader. Secrecy was a burden Tuls would have to carry.

He was an ardent follower of the Naikiran method, which included eschewing excessive riches and living a life that bordered on asceticism. His path would be one of humility, not the pursuit of esteem or grandeur. Most who met him would assume that any uncanny insight could be contributed to his disciplines, not from his legacy as a “thought reader”. At least that was his hope.

Tuls had no idea how The La'ark found out he was one of them. Yet when he was approached about this expedition and asked about his talent, he did not hide it. She already knew the truth and he could sense it. Had one of his friends tried to turn him in long ago? It was possible. He had heard rumors of people still trying to make it a crime to simply be a loskia. They would turn their neighbors in. Either way, The La'ark knew what he was. He was stunned. When he asked what she would want with him, she was succinct with the answer.

“Tell me if this 'Vincent Cordell' is a liar,” she said, “whether or not he has the power to dispel storms, he is still a factor that is beyond my ken. I know nothing about him and neither do the damned Thirteen. You can refuse. Your secret will stay safe with us.”

Famous channelers throughout history often wrote about the Weaver speaking not in speech, but in whispers so silent, one “felt” rather than heard them. So, when he heard The La'ark's proposition, he accepted, not because he wanted the pay, he refused her full sum, in fact. Nor was it because he wanted to deceive Vincent. No, it was because he felt a whisper. He had experienced the unbearable malice of the black storm and had confronted the terror of its spawn. There was enmity behind those shambling horrors, a hunger that made Tuls’ spine crawl.

For two days after encountering the storm, he was left shaken. He floundered near the fires of the gate that resides within the minds of all channelers, willing the scale of its power alone to shock the fear from his spirit. Weaverfire is infinite. It diminishes all things by its scale alone. And so, he stayed near the gate to make the stormspawn seem small. Still, something needed to be done about these banes and when he heard The La'ark's words, he could feel something compelling him to say “yes”.

He knew this was his path even though he was the least qualified person on the expedition to accompany it. Sure, he could hunt, he could use a bow or a lance, he could use imaging, but he only knew the most basic of combat. And yet in defiance of all logic, he knew in his gut that he was meant to be here on a surge beast, waiting as The La'ark questioned Vincent Cordell.

Tuls didn’t know what to think of the being who traveled with them. From the moment he met Vincent back on Lorix's Observatory, he knew there was something different about the individual. There was the charisma, but that alone did not account for the sheer “otherness” of his presence. Nor did it explain the constant sense of 'displacement' the relos felt the longer he observed him. For those who lacked a channeler's percipience, it would be easy to disbelieve the Lore of Contradictions. Tuls wasn’t even sure he believed it and yet there was an unmistakable aura about the being that set him apart from the world around him.

In many ways, Vincent’s presence felt just as unnatural as the abominable creations that spawned from that black storm. If the entity responsible for the storms were responsible for his translation as the higher-ups hedged, then surely Tuls’ nerves should have screamed in revulsion? Yet all he could feel was that sense of “otherness”, not malignance.

Even Vincent's appearance alone was striking and unusual, as if he had stepped forth from the illustrated pages of some fable. The sheen of his blue flesh seemed to cast auroras that limned his curves and followed his limbs. The geometry of his figure contrasted both silliness and severity, looking as though he were capable of either being crumpled one moment or delivering arcane retribution the next. The light green mane, which seemed to defy both gravity and friction, though now trimmed, still enshrouded and crested a snout of flawless symmetry. The sky-colored liner bordering his eyes drew the viewer to the jarring, piercing intensity of his gaze.

Every angle of the diminutive figure Vincent “inhabited” looked as though it were made to be immortalized in a painting. If one ignored the severity of its eyes and the perpetual glower on its face, the form looked innocent and harmless, incapable of carrying out the simultaneous acts of heroism and desecration often attributed to it. Only the eyes showed hints of destruction, as if their glow were fueled by Vincent's own inner rage.

Though the soldiers of Meldohv were well-disciplined and were not usually prone to gossip, Vincent’s presence had given birth to strange rumors whispered quietly among comrades. They had not known of his existence until only a few days before they left, yet there were already claims that he challenged Luin Orth to a duel, then wielded a strange lore to defeat him. Others said that he found a child whose skin was infested with liko worms and cured her of the affliction. They had all had been read the missives detailing his backstory, yet this did not stop myths from spawning. The La'ark knew of these rumors, and it compounded her need to know whether Vincent hid any deceit.

But the truth was that for the first few days, Tuls couldn’t tell. It was rare that he encountered a being whose own emotions were so chaotic, he resembled a river filled with maelstroms. Vincent appeared to be in a constant state of war with himself. The world he found himself in filled him with both awe and a childlike amazement. But in the blink of an eye, that wonder often transformed into dread, rage, and shame, before turning back to amazement again. His ebbings were a virulent storm of clashing sentiments. To say he was a creature of conflicts would be a profound understatement. It would be akin to referring to the black storms as “undesirable weather”. Looking for deceit in this maelstrom was like expecting to spot a rock on the bottom of a river filled with whitewater.

But Vincent was hiding something. Tuls could tell, eventually. When he told The La’ark about this, she didn’t seem surprised. She had been expecting it. She simply told him to keep observing Vincent.

“Tuls,” a voice rasped from behind. He turned around to find Akhil. When their expedition returned, Tuls didn’t need anybody to tell him they had encountered the stormspawn. The lingering horror among his fellow channelers and among the soldiers themselves was enough. Plus, their weapons radiated the banes’ stench.

“She is ready for me?” Tuls asked.

“She is.”

Sighing, he followed the shandan, passing by several crew members who were rushing to prepare the strider for departure. Akhil led him to a chamber carved in the beast's stone. The La'ark had requested a private location for their debriefings. Raised voices could be heard from within and Tuls could already feel the signature chaos of Vincent's ebbings. He supposed only an individual who disbelieved in reality would so freely raise his voice to a tactician as esteemed as The La'ark. When Akhil opened the door, that's exactly what he was doing.

“–what do you want from me? A damn poem?!” he spat, “she died of cancer! She was not a damn legend, she was a pharmacist!”

“Why were you going to withhold this information?” The La'ark demanded, “until Reashos pulled your wing, you were planning to keep it a secret, were you not?”

Vincent paced around the room massaging his brow, desperately trying to rein in his growing temper. “You’re not entitled to my past. Not you or your damn scribes. I know they would have a field day with it. I am not going to allow you to take my story, to try and take who I am and shove it into your damn books. I–” He stopped when he saw Tuls and Akhil standing at the door. Suspicion and paranoia laced his venom.

“Should we wait?” Akhil asked.

“No. I only have one more question, Vincent Cordell,” The La'ark said, “are you certain you saw nothing else during your lapse? Anything, any landmarks? Or features?”

“Just the sidewalk and just the swinging bag of bleeding flesh,” he said.

Tuls did not know what the “swinging bag of bleeding flesh” was, but this time the lie that accompanied it was so obvious, he almost felt the weight of it slam upon him.

“Then go. And...do not think I am ungrateful for your aid. You could very well have saved many lives.”

“You tell me why that thing had my mother's voice,” Vincent spat, apparently not hearing her words, “you tell me the significance. I don't know shit about your world!"

“I said you may leave!” The La'ark did not raise her voice much, but it was laced with dire warnings.

“Come.” Oris, who had been standing in the corner, put his hand on Vincent's shoulder. He threw off the shandan's grip and chewed on the obvious desire to hurl more expletives before limping from the room. So he didn’t escape the storm unscathed after all. Furthermore, he was...ashamed? Guilt-ridden? Yes…he was ashamed of something and it was tearing at him.

“Oris,” The La'ark said before he left the room, “keep him under close watch at all times.”

“Yes, La'ark.”

Instead of addressing Tuls immediately, she leaned over a map she had rolled out on the table and spoke to Akhil about preparations. “I want archers on all levels and wards placed on every deck. The zerok are certain another storm is headed right for us. Assuming it maintains its speed, they say it will hit us in two days. I have spoken to the Warulman of this strider and he says there is no path that will allow us to arrive at our destination before then.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“And he is still willing to give us his strider?” Akhil sounded surprised.

“The Walaki know of the storms, but they are overly confident that the surge-beasts will not be overcome by their corruption.”

“They may be right. Surge-beasts are unlike flesh and blood bodies.”

“Nevertheless, I will not argue the point to him. If his confidence allows us passage, so be it. But I will have the strider protected. I do not want a drop of blighted rain to touch its stone. Being that we will be traversing through surges, this should not be difficult. Any wards we erect will be fortified. The danger comes from the beasts that inhabit the Clash-Mounts and their crevices.” Using a wing, she tapped several red circles on the map. “Three different paths. The marks I made are estimations of where we will be when the storm hits, depending on which path we take. These two are filled with too many creatures that are susceptible to corruption, mainly stone-borers, malogers, and scarans. So that leaves us with this one. It is longer, but the channel is wider, which will make it easier to defend against any wall-crawlers or fliers.”

“Aye,” Oris grunted.

“I want every balcony to have repellents placed facing outward as a second line of defense if our archers are not enough. Have the edge-burners prepped as a third line of defense, in case any stormspawn who attack us are the kind that refuse to die. We are lucky the tantalons, for the most part, actually died when they were killed.”

“What is our contingency plan should the wards fail, and the strider is affected by the storm?” Akhil asked.

The La'ark gave him a piercing look. “That must not be allowed to happen. If it does, I assume we will most likely be killed. If not, we will have to find a way to kill it and be left stranded in the trenches of the Clash-Mounts.”

“Yes, La'ark. I will begin preparations at once.”

“Let them grieve the fallen tonight. Have somebody prepare a sending. But after we speak to Tuls.”

Tuls discussed everything he learned and inferred from Vincent's turbulence, including his deception. The La'ark said very little and instead nodded. After everything was said and done, she told him to continue his observations and he was dismissed. He nearly rushed over to one of the balconies to watch the departure. A large safety net spanned the beast's circumference below each railing, perhaps to catch anybody that fell overboard.

Far below was a formidable drop that made him feel giddy. Images of the strider tipping over and crashing to the ground came unbidden into his mind and it made every step feel a bit precarious. One of the crew, a youth a few years younger than Tuls passed him by, making sure all loose items were tied down. Seeing Tuls, he emanated vibes of mischief.

“First time?” he asked in his Walaki accent.

“Indeed, friend. My first time.” Tuls could not stop grinning. “First time seeing a surge-beast in fact. This thing is amazing, it is!”

“First time? Surge beast?” The youth sounded surprised.

“I am a marsh man. I did not travel much growing up, friend.”

“Ah! Good! Good! Marshes! Very good! I will show you trick. Yes?”

“A...trick?”

“Yes. When I come back and say 'jump', you jump like so.” He leapt straight into the air.

“You...you want me to jump like that?” Tuls asked, puzzled. “Are you bending my wing, friend?”

“No! No wing bends! Jump!”

With that he ran off, leaving the relos scratching his beard. A few kiolai, plus Vincent and Sperloc came to watch the departure as well while the soldiers began their preparations. The youth was not gone for long, as he came bounding back. He stopped to speak to both Sperloc and Vincent.

“No this is not my first time! I know this 'trick'! Ask him,” the tuhli nodded to Vincent. But the look on the latter's snout alone was enough to deter the youth from asking. Instead, he ran over to Tuls.

“Almost time,” he said. As if to punctuate his statement, the ground shifted and Tuls found himself throwing out his wings to maintain his balance.

“Aye...you ready?” the Walaki asked.

“You...still want me to jump?”

“You should do it Tuls.” He had not seen where Slade came from, but she was leaning against the wall, hand gripping a handle, grinning.

“Uh...”

“Yes, yes! Jump high! And...” He waited for a bit, reading the motions of the strider, “Jump!”

Feeling absolutely ridiculous, Tuls did. It was at that exact moment that the cleft strider lowered its body toward the ground at a frightening speed. He uttered several expletives as the floor rushed away from him and he was left floating momentarily in midair. For a heartbeat or two, he floundered as his feet scrambled to find purchase, the ground outside the balcony rushing upward to meet them. But the strider slowed its descent and Tuls fell back to the floor, panting.

“What...what?!”

“Nice trick, yes?” the Walaki grinned, “you jump, the strider 'drop', you fly.”

Outside, the beast was no longer perched on top of its legs, but suspended in the middle of them like a six-legged insect. Each leg radiated outward and upward from its carapace before bending at the joint. Though they were still a considerable distance from the ground, a fall from the balcony could be survivable. Vincent uttered an expletive in his local dialect.

“That is why I told you to hold on!” Sperloc growled.

Once he recovered, Tuls burst out laughing. He placed his hands on the railing and watched as the beast took its first steps toward the Clash-Mounts. The floor listed under its gait, softly leaning toward all four corners. Considering the creature's colossal size, he expected the experience to be far more turbulent. But its movements were precise, and it compensated for changes in topography in order to keep its form level. Still, he knew the most amazing part was yet to come.

They eventually entered the looming shadows of the Clash-Mounts as the beast approached one of the many fissures. The pass tapered to a narrow point near the bottom, which would have made passage for travelers impossible. But Tuls held onto the rail, for he had heard about what was coming next. There was a reason the beasts were called “cleft-striders”.

The surge-beast stopped as if to consider the passage, then it raised its two front legs, leaning back to compensate for the shifting weight. It planted them on both sides of the canyon and pushed off with its back legs. The entire floor quaked as it pulled itself into the crevice.

When it was finished, it had its legs planted firmly against both walls of the cleft, keeping itself aloft by opposing pressure alone. A beast this size should have devastated the cliff face. But Tuls read that there was a strange exchange of energies between the strider and the veins of liacyte within the cleft. When it traversed the gap, it left minimal wear on the surrounding environment, aside from shaking loose a few pebbles.

He watched for a little while longer before one of the soldiers came by and planted a few repellent wards along the railing. It was hard to believe any of the stormspawn could threaten them when they rode a beast of this magnitude. But all he had to do was remember the ill-infested malice behind those abominations. Shuddering, he offered to help the soldiers prepare.

Later that evening, he retreated to a quiet place to meditate and to collect his thoughts. The abominations were not the only danger they would face on this journey. They meant to cross The Gash and The Stillwater. Those places were dangerous enough on their own. But if a storm struck...well, he hoped that would not happen. He asked the powers above for aid and protection, and for the humility to accept whatever comes to pass. The biggest danger came not from tragedy itself, but how one allowed it to affect their spirit. He sought the gate within himself, not because he had any misconceptions about being able to use it, but because its magnitude alone was enough to make small all of his fears.

That night, after all the preparations were made, the soldiers gathered around a fire on the roof of the cleft-strider. Not all of them gathered to grieve the fallen, as it would have been impossible to do while also standing guard. It was a small group in fact, consisting of the fallen's comrades as well as Vincent's personal guard. The flames flickered, animating their otherwise sullen snouts.

“kaaarumm......kaaarumm...”

The strider’s steps thrummed in the background. Rocks dislodged and fell into the pass below. The soldiers’ eyes were raw with grief, but none of them wept. Yet a pall sunk over the air. Akhil stepped forward, holding in his hand a sending shard. It was a pink dirk whose blade was little more than a jagged piece of pink crystal, whose taper narrowed to a razor-sharp needle. It wasn’t made for cutting, but for piercing. Tuls had heard of these being used by the shandan in sending ceremonies, but he never thought he would ever witness such a thing.

“We lost brothers last night,” Akhil rasped, “the night carrier comes for us all and last night, it came for them. It took them from us. And yet we know, that though they are gone, their spirits can still hear us from beyond the veil. All we have to do is call them by name. Then they hear every word. And so...I say, Clyme...”

Silence followed. The tinder crackled. Then Oris cleared his throat.

“Raspin,” he said.

“Jaad,” a soldier chimed in, following the brothers’ lead.

“Argelo,” another added.

All around the fire, the shandan began to mutter the names of the dead, their lost brethren. Every syllable was constricted and choked.

“Seshin.”

“Kalop.”

“Holids.”

“Belukai.”

The grief washed over Tuls, as did the terror and anger. It was tangible. He could taste it, smell it.

“Tens.”

“Wilo.”

“Quen...and Galani...”

“Theop,” Sperloc grumbled.

“Enshu,” Madrian added.

Tuls caught a glimpse of Vincent, his snout hidden in shadow. Only his eyes could be seen under the hood, which Tuls has been told was a piece of clothing from his home world. Vincent stared at the flames, whose tongues were reflected in his orbs. A silent storm of conflicts brewed within him.

“Ar'tahl.”

“Kladen.”

Vincent was drifting, Tuls could tell. He was trapped in a confused whorl of sentiments. Yet every name the shandan rattled off was like a dagger.

“Lalen.”

“Kalasti.”

“Salepu.”

“Reneo.”

Twenty names, twenty of Meldohv’s best soldiers lost in one night.

“Brothers,” Akhil said, “hear us. Know that I am honored to have fought by your side. You were valiant...” He raised his hand in the air and held his palm in front. “You were honorable. And your deaths wound us.”

Akhil raised the sending shard to his palm and pierced it. When he withdrew its tip, he squeezed his hand and held it over the fire. Blood dripped out and fell onto the coals. The fire sizzled as he passed the blade to his brother, who did the same thing. Both of them held their dripping palms out. Then they opened their hands and stamped their palms on their own wings, their blood acting as ink.

Oris passed the sending shard to the nearest soldier, who repeated the ritual of self-mutilation. After he pierced his palms and marked his wings, he passed it to the next. Each of them took turns passing it around, paying their respects, and sharing in each other’s pain. When the sending shard reached Tuls, the shandan hesitated.

“I didn’t know them, friend,” Tuls whispered, “but I’ll pay homage.”

He accepted the shard, feeling honored by the gesture. But intentionally hurting himself was far more difficult than he would have imagined. He had to bite his lip and focus on the flames. The shard, with its sharp, needle-thin crystalline tip, pierced his palm with ease and he winced at the stinging. He passed the blade onto the next soldier and clenched his leaking palm. Eventually, the shard reached Vincent, who didn’t seem to notice it at first. But then he looked at the blade and shook his head. Eventually, the shard made its way back to Akhil, who resumed the sending ceremony.

“I promise, we will do everything in our power to avenge your deaths,” he said, “your stories will be passed down to your progeny and your bravery will be sung by all your brothers. But for now, may the night carrier take you the Everfields. There, we hope to meet you someday. And now I speak to the champions of the Weaver... Telo One-Wing. Frellen the Burned. Naikira Herald-Slayer. Gothri the Storm. Twenty brave spirits come your way. Please, welcome them with wings spread. They have served us well.”

When the ceremony was over, the soldiers sat in silence. And yet, as the night went on, they began to speak again. In hushed whispers at first. It started out somber, but they quickly turned into the exchanging of wild tales. Their laughter echoed off the canyon walls as the cleft-strider clambered.

“–and so we found him passed out on the tavern floor,” one of the soldiers said. Klaken was his name, if Tuls recalled. “We’re looking at Lamone’s body. He’s just lying there, sleeping. Well, Clyme turns to me and he says ‘You know how he keeps talking about baby zerok? Well, we should dress him up as one.’ I say ‘How?’ And Clyme says ‘Let’s glue feathers to his body and leave him in a nest.’”

“Whaaat?” one of the other soldiers said.

“We drag him outside,” Klaken continued, “there are zerok feathers all over the place since one of their perches is nearby. We find some pitch that some builders left at the site of a new...uh, bookstore they were building, and start slathering it all over Lomane. Then we covered him with as many feathers as we could find. By the time we were finished, you couldn’t even see him anymore! It was just feathers!”

“I remember this,” Menik said, “it took you weeks to clean that stuff off, right, Lomane?”

Lomane simply nodded and wiped his eyes. He was torn between grinning at the memory and weeping.

“So we got him all fluffed up,” Klaken said, “now we have to find a nest! So we take a carriage across the orange sector, take the skylift up to the nesting grounds. Clyme starts going around asking people where we can find the nearest nest. ‘We just want to leave our drunk friend in one!’ he says. Everybody thinks we’re crazy. But then this guy comes up to us. He sees what we’re doing, and he loves it! ‘I have a friend who’s a zerok!’ he says, ‘his mate just gave birth a few weeks ago! You can leave your friend with the newborns! Follow me, I’ll take you to them!’”

Madrian and Jeris were in tears by this point.

“So we pay the carriage driver to follow this guy. He leads us to this nest. His friend isn’t there, but his friend’s mate is. She’s just had these young ones and so she’s in the middle of her reveries.”

“Reveries?” another soldier repeated.

“She gave birth a few weeks before. She was the most relaxed, the happiest zerok you’ve ever seen. She was in her reveries,” Klaken explained, “so this guy, he tells her what we want to do. ‘These guys want to prank their friend...’ and she’s fine with it! She has two newborns in her nest huddled up in a little pile. We dump Lamone right next to them and just leave him there!”

A few soldiers asked Lomane if this really happened.

“It’s true,” Lomane rasped, “I woke up with a damn headache, covered in feathers. There’s two little zerok runts right next to me. I didn’t know where I was, but I knew Clyme had something to do with it because it’s the kind of stupid shit he would do. He started laughing like an idiot when he saw me the next morning. Then I went to work on him. Knocked his teeth out. It took him months to get his smile back."

His laughter transformed into a stifled sob, which he quenched.

“Twenty of us...gone,” he said. His eyes stared at the fire as if he were seeking answers in its flames.

Tuls stood up and stretched. For a moment, the swaying of the cleft-strider almost caused him to lose his balance. But he caught himself on one of the shandan.

“Sorry, friend,” he said, “I’ve never ridden a surge-beast before.”

“Aye, no problem. Thanks for sharing your blood.”

There was dark humor in the comment and Tuls let out a half-hearted laugh.

“I am sorry for your loss, friends,” he said, “I would stay and listen to your tales, but I usually retreat at this time of day.”

“Rest well, Relos,” one of them said.

Tuls made his way down to the dorms, staying close to the railing for balance. He supposed one would get used to the strider’s movements eventually. He walked along the balcony, the lanterns in its arches painted it with swaying shadows as the surge-beast lumbered. Tuls stopped right outside their dorm when he noticed a shape leaning against the railing. It was too dark to discern the details, but he recognized Vincent’s silhouette. Vincent had left the roof shortly after the sending ceremony. Now, he was overlooking the railing and watching as the strider straddled the cliffs. Menik was also nearby, but he was busy packing his things into the dorm. Tuls approached the railing and stood beside Vincent. They both watched and listened to the colossus.

“Karruuuum...karruuuum...”

“How are you doing, Brother?” Tuls asked.

It didn’t seem like Vincent would answer at first. He opened his mouth a few times and shut it.

“I’ve always wanted to ride one of these when I was a kid,” Tuls said, trying to sound cheerful, “aye...it is massive! I can’t believe it! I wonder how much these things can eat. I just wish...well...I wish circumstances were better, you know?”

Vincent didn’t respond. Tuls sighed and stared out at the cliffs. The sky above outlined their silhouettes.

“Friend, I can tell you’re shaken. Your eyes are glass. Do you want to talk about it?”

Finally, Vincent broke the silence. “My eyes are glass...” he repeated, shaking his head, “nah...I’m just reminiscing.”

Tuls waited for a few moments before saying, “about...?”

“I once punched my mother,” Vincent said. He sounded distant.

Tuls blinked.

“Yeah, when I was a kid. Like...right before I went into my teens. I hit her. Punched her right in the face. I was just thinking about that.”

“Huh...” Tuls wasn't sure what he should say.

Vincent waited for a couple of the Walaki stewards to pass them by, then he continued. “It fucking sucked,” he said, “school, I mean. It was a shitty, inner-city school. And I was the crazy kid. You could accuse me of doing anything and the teachers would believe it. I was always getting into trouble. And the voices… they made it worse. They kept telling me that everybody was out to get me. I believed them,"

His inflection was flat, devoid of any emotion. But as he continued to speak, his words quickened. They became more passionate. “And of course my classmates saw how unhinged I was, and they couldn’t resist screwing with me. Nobody did anything to stop them. No matter how many times my mother would come in and complain, nobody did squat. And so, one day, I snapped. One of the kids who used to fuck with me pushed me over the edge. So, I grabbed a piece of rebar I’d found on the playground, and I struck him across the face with it. Knocked one of his teeth out. He fell to the ground, started kicking the pavement.”

Tuls watched the cliffs pass by, the strider's silhouette dancing on their faces.

“My mom got summoned to the school and she’s told that I’m being expelled. I remember he even had a fucking police officer standing in the office with him, I guess in case my mom made a scene. And she did. She told them she’d come in hundreds of times to complain about my treatment by both the teachers and the kids in my class. Nobody did a thing. He didn’t give a shit, none of them did. They just wanted me out. The principal even said they don’t want somebody like me there. That I belonged in a zoo.”

Though some of the phrases Vincent used were familiar, he came from another culture and used words that were foreign to the relos.

“So she takes me out to the car," Vincent said, "she’s livid, I’m miserable. The voices are constantly whispering in my ears. She slams the door, rests her head on the steering wheel, shaking. Then she starts yelling at me. I don’t even remember what the fuck she said, something about working so damn hard to make sure I could get an education. It didn’t matter. To me and my fucked up head, she turned on me. She was just like them: The teachers, everybody in the world. They were all against me. That’s what the Bane made me think. So, I punched her right in the face. She raised her hand to her nose, saw the blood on it, dropped her head on the steering wheel, and started crying. I don’t mean just...weeping. I mean full-on sobbing, like a kid who’d just lost a balloon.”

Vincent took a moment to clear his throat. Tuls dragged his feet on the ground and scratched a wing.

“I loved her,” Vincent said, “but I punched her right in the face after she went up to bat for me. That’s what happens when I don’t fight my condition. Everything I do has collateral. It'd be easier to give in, but I can't. I have to fight it every damn day. Otherwise, I ruin lives.”

Vincent almost seemed to be speaking to the cliffs rather than Tuls, like he was pleading with them.

“You live in a different world, friend,” Tuls said.

Vincent pushed off the railing. “It was a long time ago,” he said. His voice was light, and his words were uncertain. “Now I’m here,” he gestured to the world, “I’m surrounded by dragons. We’re banding together to fight evil and I’m using my powers to help. I’m...I’m the good guy now. I’m a…" Something choked his voice and it took him a moment to speak again. "I'm a ‘hero’.”

When Vincent turned to leave, he didn’t let Tuls see his face.