As the cold winds of high altitudes buffeted straight into him, Tercius observed the literal tent town in the valley below. Thousands of flapping shelters and hundreds of fires made their home at the base of the bare mountain, while what seemed like tens of thousands of dark dots mingled about. Arriving from the east, convoy after convoy of giant sheep pulled logs from the forests, likely to feed the fires.
Further up the mountain on the other side of the valley, hundreds of stone houses covered the mountainside terraces, where crops of some kind seemed to thrive despite the chilly climate. Then, settled midway up a steep cliffside, embedded into a massive hole, was the monastery of Balance.
Tercius adjusted the fur coat and his warm cap, slowly coming to grips with what he was seeing. If Zerakronoz's memories were to be believed, then all of these people, delegations from nearly all the tribes of the mountains, were here solely because of him. Of course, he would bet that none of them knew that. Their clergy had only told them what they needed to know, and in turn, the clergy had likely got only the information their spirits wanted to share.
Tercius took a deep breath of the thin cold air. There was no avoiding them. To go to the monastery, he would have to pass through the wide tent-town. With a nudge, Lucky sprang forward and jumped off the cliff. Through the air they sailed, skipping from one tiny ridge or crevice to another, descending a dozen meters every few seconds. Before long, the shaken Tercius was down in the valley. After a moment, he urged Lucky to go forward. The ram took off on a gallop, and before long Tercius saw men and women come striding out of the far tent-line, heading his way.
He patted the ram’s warm back. “Calm, Lucky. Calm. Slow and steady. Slow.”
He took comfort in his own words as well, swallowing the desire to be anywhere else at this moment, and he urged Lucky onwards.
Dressed in combinations of fur and clothes, the people approaching him had their faces painted in varying colors, as well as patterns and places. Some had white wings only on their foreheads, others had some kind of large black dots all along the jawline, and there were even the full-face paints with vines and green leaves that Tercius remembered seeing back in Leawarra's Grove. As he saw their painted faces, so too they saw his unpainted one. Spears, bows, and more were drawn, as some of them started shouting something so quickly that he couldn't properly understand.
One of the dark-skinned women with the black dots along her jawline stepped forward ahead of the group, an arrow pointed directly at him.
In a voice that rose above the crowd at her back, she threw back a yell, “Silence! You know the order!” Her dark eyes turned back to him. “You there! Come down! Now!”
Tercius’ lips twitched. He was pretty sure she wanted him to dismount.
He nodded and followed the order. He grabbed Lucky’s reins and then waited. The woman seemed to access him somehow, but then she inclined her head over her shoulder, pointing the arrow at him. “Walk before me.”
A murmur arose in the crowd behind her as a familiar hunchback pushed his way through the bulwark of spears and bows.
Tercius' eyes narrowed, and despite himself, he frowned. How the hell was he here?
“Stand aside and lower those things.” the old shaman barked. Despite some obvious reluctance, spears and bows were lowered, yet the unfriendly narrow-eyed stares centered at Tercius remained cold.
The old hunchback approached him, his hand rising and touching the tattoo between his brows, only to give Tercius a nearly toothless smile. Tercius just looked at the man in silence. He could not say that he had expected to see him so soon, or at all, for that matter.
“We have… how do you outlanders say… had a difficult start. Yes?” the old man said in a heavily accented Empire’s Common, to the evident surprise of the people at his back. Only those with the green face paints showed no surprise at hearing a tongue so alien to most people of these parts. “How did you hide that before, I wonder…” the hunchback murmured to himself, intently looking at Tercius’ chest.
Tercius found the gaze deeply disturbing.
The old man’s eyes finally looked up. “But… maybe we can put that difficult start behind us. Yes?”
With careful control, Tercius swallowed his rising nerves and pushed his cool anger away as looked behind the old hunchback. He scanned the crowd only to find an older man with a massive dark beard who had his cheeks painted in black and white claw marks. In between his bushy brows, a dark tattoo marked him as a priest of Divine Balance.
He would have to do.
Pretending for his own sake that slimy looks from the rest of the crowd were not there, Tercius took a deep breath and lowered his head to the complete stranger. “In the name of M’ti’mya, I pledge to hold my hands and Skills in check. May the Scales never tip to my side again, should I fail to uphold my pledge unprovoked.”
A strange ripple stirred in the growing crowd as they looked at the bearded priest. The man adjusted to it all without a question of any kind. He just raised his left hand to his forehead and said, “In the name of M’ti’mya, I pledge to you the protection of my hands and Skills. May the Scales never tip to my side again, should I fail to uphold my pledge unprovoked.”
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
Having heard that, Tercius breathed a little bit easier. Now anyone trying to attack him would have to go through a priest of Balance, and considering where they were all camping currently, that would be a really bad idea. He had not been sure that this would work, but according to Rona’s instructions, if he got the returned pledge now all he had to do to keep his immunity was not attack anyone first. He could do that.
The hunchback elder moved closer to Tercius, grabbing him by the arm and almost making him break the immunity here and now. “You should come with me. Your things are waiting,” he whispered, his hawk-like eyes narrowed on Tercius. “As is Leawarra.”
Tercius freed his arm, feeling one of those strong repulsions that rarely ever occurred to him. “Is that so?” he whispered.
“Young man… The… problem we had… We did not understand each other. That’s all…”
Tercius looked at the man’s painted face with narrowed, but calm eyes, almost expecting the thorny vines to appear at any moment. Even as he imagined that horror show repeating, another part couldn’t keep quiet. Not to this man. “Is that what happened?”
The corner of the man’s lips twitched. “In… apology… I return everything taken… and offer more. Leawarra too—”
“You offer a member of your tribe now?” Tercius whispered at the man harshly, his anger no longer completely cold.
The old man’s face twisted. “No… but she wants to see you—”
“They call me Pios.” the deep voice of the priest of Balance interrupted.
Tercius peeled his gaze away from the green vines and leaves of the old shaman and looked at the somewhat younger Pios and his black and white painted claw marks. The dark tattoo between the man’s brows shone for a fleeting moment, almost making Tercius wonder if he imagined it.
“Tercius,” he gave a nod to the man.
Pios nodded back. “Come, Tercius. We have somewhere to be, you and I," he said, looking over the expanse of tents, stone houses, and terraces, directly at the massive hole in the mountainside and the monastery that found itself there.
The hunchbacked elder wanted to say something, but a look from Pios seemed enough to still his tongue. Tercius observed the exchange of looks with some curiosity. As Pios turned, Tercius grabbed Lucky’s reins and followed.
Once more, the hunchbacked elder grabbed his arm. “Find me when you can,” he whispered and let him go.
Through the tents and under thousands of curious gazes, he was led up the slope of the valley, feeling like a show animal put on display for others to observe. Then, out of nowhere, one familiar redhead popped up and ran straight to him.
All at once, things seemed to happen.
In a flash of white light, a massive translucent white tiger loomed above Leawarra, its cavernous jaws just above her head, one of its immense feathery wings interposed right between him and Leawarra.
“There will be no problems here. He’s my guest,” Pios said calmly.
Leawarra stood still and whimpered, while Lucky bleated and jerked away. Tercius, who was firmly holding onto the reins, completely lost his footing and crashed into the ground on his side. The leather reins flew from his grasp and Tercius saw Lucky turn around, the ram ready to bolt through the tent town and for the mountains.
“Lucky, calm. Calm!” Tercius commanded the ram like never before, the {Teaching Bond} between them snapping into place with a surprising intensity. “Stop right there, right now!”
The ram stood rooted in place, shaken but willing to comply with the command. Tercius jumped to his feet and ran to the beast, patting his muzzle. "Good boy," After Lucky calmed down, Tercius' focus finally expanded and he noticed that even more people had gathered to observe the spectacle. He glanced at where Pios and Leawarra were and saw that the translucent tiger was gone.
Patting himself to shake off the dirt, and avoiding looking at the crowd of pointing people, he led Lucky back and joined the two.
“This one says she knows you,” Pios said.
Tercius nodded after a moment.
“I tried to stop him,” Leawarra said, first glancing at Pios, then looking at Tercius’ forehead, right where the stone had cut him open and made a bump. Nothing of that injury remained. “Hurting you. I did—”
“I heard your voice, yes,”
“We should go,” Pios interrupted in the strangest version that Tercius ever heard of Empire’s Common. “We are expected.”
Tercius’ eyes narrowed at the priest for a few moments, but then he glanced at Leawarra.
“Ah… Can I… come with… you?”
Tercius glanced back at Pios, who took a moment to think about it. “Come tomorrow to the gates of the monastery and ask for Pios.” Pios told her.
Leawarra seemed hesitant to leave, but she nodded. “Tomorrow,” she said to Tercius who nodded.
The walk through the tent town was a long one, so much so that Tercius almost asked Pios to join him on Lucky so that they might finish this leg of the journey faster. Up on the hillside, they ascended stairs and walked across walled terraces, where every stone home had a rather tidy garden and some domestic animals around it. Cats of all kinds were everywhere. The pathway up was winding and long, left to right, then right to left. The people here all had claw marks of black and white painted on their faces.
Along the way, a couple of priests and priestesses joined them. All of them spoke to Pios in rather low whispers, all of them glancing at him every now and then and some even outright pointing.
The entrance to the monastery was a grand wall that covered only about a third of the height of the massive hole in the mountainside, but they all entered without a fuss of any kind. The dark metal gates were wide and tall enough even for Lucky to pass through more than comfortably.
A truly enormous cavern opened before his eyes, large enough to host what appeared to host entire gardens and even a large grove of trees right behind the wall.
More and more of the clergy joined along as they traveled through the grove and gardens that all had direct sunlight so late in the day, until they finally stopped at the back of the biggest cave he had ever been in. Carved into stone, were dozens of entrances. Rows upon rows of windows reached up for the ceiling.
Tercius suddenly stood still in place. At the entrance of the biggest carved door, standing in white and black furs surrounded by a dozen priests and priestesses, was an old lady of long white hair and cloudy green eyes.
She smiled at him. “I thought that we would meet again.”