“Remember what I've told you: only enter the village when it's dark, don't use lights, cover your face once you're down there.”
“Yeah, I remember.” Saia followed with her finger the black line traced across the map. “I hope I won't miss the signs when I come back. I don't think I'll be able to see the dots.”
“Then look out for neatly cut branches, circles of leaves,” Rabam listed, “White stones, exposed roots with a red stripe. Just be extra careful in this point.” He leaned forward on the chair to point out a small area on the map that she was holding on her knees. “And this one. A lot of paths cross in these two points, you'll risk choosing the wrong one and getting spotted.”
Saia circled the two areas with a piece of graphite.
“Anything else?”
“Please come back safely. Do you already have a plan for when you're here?”
“It's my free day, but I have a turn at six here.” She pointed at one of the sentinel posts scribbled on the map. “I'll get there from this direction, so the other sentinels will think I came from the village.”
“Are you sure you'll be there in time?”
Saia sighed, leaning back on the chair. The striking blue-green of the lake did nothing to calm her nerves.
“I don't know. I have to get to Lausune, convince a friend to come with me, go back along this trail,” she pointed at another line, “Descend toward Suimer, deal with Vizena and come back in time. Almost impossible, but I'm trying not to think about it too much.”
Rabam nodded, lowering his eyes.
“If it's of any consolation,” Saia said. “If I fail the monks will most likely come back. Ask my friend Aili to help you with your plan, she's a genius.”
Rabam nodded again.
“I hope you succeed and make it back.”
“Thank you.”
Saia looked at him a bit longer before returning her eyes to the map. She hadn't forgotten about what he’d said on giving gods a worse punishment than death. She'd been on the point of asking multiple times that day, but she'd decided against it: as good as punishing Vizena would be, it was a responsibility she didn't want. She'd have to do something, of course, in the remote chance her plan actually worked, but it was a decision she could take later, once her village was safe.
She glanced at the sun and got up with a sigh.
“Time to go. If you don't hear from me in two days or so, assume the worst.”
He got up too.
“It's weird,” Rabam said. “The other day you said you weren't ready, and now you're in a hurry.”
“They're sending a group of monks to Suimer, today. When they’ll take three years from Vizena, she'll know I have something to do with it and I fear she'll target my family and friends.”
“What if the monks see you there?”
“I don't know. I was planning to use their visit as a distraction, if I time it right.”
“That's... smart,” he said, looking to the side. Saia had the impression he wanted to say something else, like 'dangerous', ‘reckless’, 'insane'. She agreed with all of that, so she didn't comment.
She rolled up the map and slipped it inside the bag, one end jutting out, ready to be consulted, the other against the scales of a sleeping snake. She had brought all of the six adults, she’d have brought the newborns too hadn't they been so small and hard to catch.
She approached the beginning of the path, Rabam steps soft behind her. The sequence of black dots started on a tree and snaked down the side of the mountain.
“See you soon, then,” Rabam said, holding out a hand.
Saia hesitated, then briefly touched it. She felt a flux of calmness that momentarily relaxed her tense muscles. She smiled at him, then turned and started walking along the trail in the trees. According to Rabam, in the first part of the path the foliage was dense enough that she needed to do little else besides following the dots and paying attention not to slip on some lichen-covered rock.
She thought ahead at what she had to do: go to Dan's house and take Zeles, find a spot hidden enough to have a conversation with him, hopefully convince him to help her. She remembered with a pang of guilt the circumstances in which she had left him, how angry and disappointed he was, how defeated. There was still the risk he would go to the monks as soon as she awakened him, to be killed at the end of the trials. Even in the remote chance he accepted and they won, she had nothing to offer that would fix the situation: the monks would keep looking for him, he would lose more and more viss until he dissolved.
She had tried to find a solution, mainly by looking for a way to take the energy from Vizena without her permission. She had visited the library for the first time after Aili had left, looking for information on the ritual the monks would have used to remove three years of her life. It required multiple people expert in energy manipulation, and apparently the viss that was extracted that way dissolved immediately. The book had explained the concept by making a comparison with the way some lichens attached to rocks: you could try to pry them away, but the sheer strength required would tear them apart, leaving you with a lot of smaller pieces that, in terms of energy, would dissolve before any attempt could be made to gather them. She'd also thought about convincing Vizena to give Zeles her energy, even using a manipulation if she got the chance, but dealing with her would have been difficult enough without having to think about that on top of everything else.
She reached a point where the vegetation was more sparse. The path split up into four branches, two of which would force her to cross a stretch of grass without cover, while the other two went in completely opposite directions. She unrolled the map and checked the gray line before heading to the left.
She followed the trail of dots until the trees gave way to a huge boulder. Saia crouched behind it, even if it was high enough to hide her while she was standing. She took note of its position and surveyed the area before moving on; she needed to remember the general shape of the areas she met, since the return trip would have been at the first lights of dawn.
She reached the first area circled in pencil on the map. It just seemed a random spot in the woods, except for the dots on every other tree, each starting a different path. There were also other signs to distinguish trail from terrain, like a circle of green leaves pinned to the ground by small wooden sticks and a series of three white stones. Some of those signs had been laid down by the monks, some by Rabam each time he had to cross an uncharted part of the forest.
She consulted the map once again, trying to distinguish which direction was the one she needed. She marked the way from which she came by carving an arrow at the base of a tree with a knife she had taken from the kitchen. She stepped around the area, careful to never stray too far, and watched her steps closely for fear of moving or ruining a sign. She was surprised to find that some of them were already ruined, like a white stone overturned and a branch broken in half. There were prints on the terrain. She remembered the boar and froze on the spot, looking around for a trace of movement.
She couldn’t find any, and besides she couldn't tell whether the prints were fresh or not. She continued her survey of the area, glancing over her shoulder every once in a while. She found the trail she needed with the help of the tips and descriptions that were jotted down on the back of the map. She followed a steep trail, grabbing at the lowest branches of the trees to keep her balance.
The second difficult point took her even more time to figure out, since about two hours had passed and there was almost no light left. Lausune was very close, so she wrapped a green shawl around her lower face. She found the beginning of the trail she planned to follow later that night to reach Suimer without having to cross Dore's territory. She cut an arrow in the trunk of the closest tree and started her descent along the path that connected that spot to Zeles’s village.
She spotted the line of white stones arching amid the trees and stopped before crossing it. She turned to look up at the mountain, to make sure that she was entering the right village, then took a deep breath and crossed the border. Even if she knew it was impossible, part of her mind expected to hear Koidan speak at any moment.
She walked through the last stretch of forest, following the only trail that got close enough to the back of the temple. She stopped before leaving the cover of the trees and sat down next to the biggest one she could find, watching the sunset and, as much as possible with the temple blocking part of her view, the movements of the people inside the village. There was a small crowd at the docks, like every evening, and another near the post office. Some groups were walking around in the right part of the village, where Morìc and Dan's house was, but she couldn't distinguish the inhabitants from the monks.
She waited until the sun was barely touching the horizon before moving. She followed a wide curve around the temple to avoid the perpetually burning torches planted around the perimeter that prevented the spheres from leaving at night without anyone noticing. Aili had told her that the temple was also built in a way that made moving or destroying the stones at the base impossible without damaging the structure in a way that tipped the monks off on what was happening.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
She descended along the only path that led to the building. The sentinels couldn't see her well enough to know who she was, unless for some reason she looked up at the mountain with a torch in front of her. She still had to avoid the monks, since some of them knew who she was. Covering her lower face could seem suspicious, but she couldn’t risk being recognized by the inhabitants.
She mingled with the passersby, following one of the main roads, then turned left, cutting through any spot of grass she could find in order to avoid people. She noticed three monks in the general area of Morìc and Dan's house, so she traced a wide circle to approach from the rear. There were two windows on that side: the kitchen and Dan's room. She knocked on the latter, then hid by pressing her back against the wall to the side, in case the person fumbling with the window's handle wasn't actually Dan. He opened the window a bit, keeping the two sides close enough to be slammed shut at the first sign of attack.
“Dan, it’s me.”
He jumped, of course, in seeing the dark shadow next to him and hearing that unexpected voice.
“Saia?” was his incredulous answer.
“Yep, that's me.”
She stepped closer. He looked at her in the dark, then went inside for a second, leaving the window open. He returned with a candle, shielding the flame as he slowly set it down on the windowsill. He smiled.
“Where have you been? Did they hurt you?”
“What?” Saia let out a short laugh. “The monks? No, I've just been living with them for a while.”
He frowned a bit, looking at her tunic.
“Then why didn’t you come back with Aili?”
“Their rules are very strict. Especially when it comes to who can come down here and who has to stay at...”
She stopped herself in time. Dan perked up.
“Where?”
Saia sighed.
“I can't tell you. They could easily find out you have this information.”
“Aili is protecting me!” he said, voice suddenly higher.
Saia shushed him.
“I shouldn't be here and there are monks everywhere.”
He nodded.
“Everybody here trusts them,” he continued. “Even my brother. But I don't, because Aili did something to me and now they can't control my thoughts.”
“So you still have the sphere? Is it safe?”
His shoulders curved a bit.
“I'm pretty sure it is, but I don't have it.”
Saia fought the surge of panic by telling herself that it made sense: the monks had likely checked inside the houses and Dan had to hide Zeles somewhere.
“Where can I find it?”
“I gave it to Aili.”
“What?”
Dan explained how the monks had realized he was hiding the sphere, how Aili had saved him and told him to lie about the merchant and Dore's involvement.
“And where is she now?”
“Most of the time, in Dore's territory. She comes back every few days.”
“Is she here now?”
“I don't know. She told me to stay away from the monks because she can't protect me every morning as she did before.”
Saia extended a hand.
“Can I?”
Dan nodded and pressed his forehead against her palm, clearly familiar with the gesture. Saia found the traces of Aili's work all over his energies and strengthened it as best as she could.
“Done.” She retracted her hand. “It should last you at least until tomorrow morning, then I think I’ll sleep.”
He smiled.
“Thank you. How does it work?”
“I really wish I could give you an explanation, but I don't have time right now.”
She noticed a water bottle on the corner of the windowsill. It had the exact shape of the ones that the monks had on the mountain.
“They don’t want us to use the wells,” Dan explained, following her gaze. “They distribute the water instead. I don’t know why.”
Saia nodded. She propped an elbow against the windowsill and looked back at the dark silhouette of the mountain, thinking of what to do next. The post office and the area around it, including Aili's house, was filled with monks. Even in the off-chance she got there safely, found Aili and managed to communicate with her, handling the sphere would have been too dangerous. She could only hope Aili knew what she was doing.
“How long ago did she leave?” she asked.
“About four days, I think.”
Which meant that Dore had probably been deactivated, and the only reason nobody knew was because the priors would officially announce it on fourthday, in case the situation wasn’t solved by then. Even if it was tempting to cross into Dore's territory and from there into Vizena’s, without wasting time with the deviation, she couldn't hope to accomplish anything without Zeles.
“I have to go back,” she said with a sigh.
“So soon?”
“I had some things to do, but I can't without the sphere.”
Dan leaned forward on the windowsill, just like Saia did when she was a kid.
“Why?” he asked. “What is it?”
She tapped an index on his forehead.
“The monks, remember? I can't tell you anything.”
He slumped visibly, his mouth shut as if he was trying really hard not to protest. Saia remembered how much she hated when her parents didn't explain anything, like why she had to train as a secret-keeper, and her joy when she finally found out the answer.
“I have to save my village from a dangerous situation. I might need your and your brother's help to cross Dore's territory without being stopped by the monks. I'll tell you everything when I come back.”
Dan nodded vigorously. Saia ruffled his hair and covered her lower face again with the shawl.
“Time to go. Be careful.”
“You too.”
She walked away slowly until she heard the window close, then accelerated. She reached the temple and turned around to gauge how late into the night it was. The sunset was almost ending: she had about two hours of moderate to low light. She could wait until morning and go back near dawn, but she couldn't fall asleep or the snakes would have been free to hurt her, given the chance. If she started to climb immediately, she'd have to wait for the morning in a spot closer to the village, with fewer worries about being found out. And even if she was tired, going up after five or more hours would have been worse.
She checked the map one last time, then started up the path from which she had arrived. Going up required more time, but she didn't stop as often: she remembered most of the landmarks, and the arrow she'd made on the trunk allowed her to proceed fast after the first difficult point. Moving quickly was becoming more and more of a necessity as the light faded from the sky, but at least the sentinels couldn't spot her easily.
Almost two hours later, she finally passed the second difficult point. She had just spotted the dark shape of her first landmark, the boulder on the side of the path, when a sound to her left made her freeze. It was a mixture of heavy, raspy breathing and shaken foliage. She remembered it from her first trip up the mountain: the boar. It was close, even if she couldn't see its shape yet. Only indistinct movement, some of it caused by the wind through the bushes.
She didn't move, uncertain about what to do. The boar was clearly approaching, even if not in a straight line. She didn't know much about that kind of creature, but remembered Aili’s descriptions: they could smell pretty well, even find people or things if properly motivated and given a trace to follow. Which meant hiding was pointless, and obviously fighting too. She could probably make it fall asleep, but that would require getting close enough to touch it, and she refused to even entertain the idea.
She opened the bag with trembling fingers to look for something useful. She saw some scales glisten in the dark and remembered the snakes. She extracted two of them and turned their heads toward the sky to better look at the dots she had painted on them to remember which scales belonged to them. She put on the glove that allowed her to control them. The breathing stopped for an instant, then resumed, mixed to squeaking grumpfs. Now it was closer, on the path behind Saia. She bent low and let one snake fall, then ran ahead and put down the second.
She turned and jumped at the sight of the figure that was moving toward her. It lowered its head and slowed down, its body tensing in the way that preceded a charge. Saia woke up the snakes and started to run toward the boulder. She heard thumping and a screech, but didn't stop until she was halfway up the rock, feet on the grooves along its side.
She looked back, hoping to see the boar gone or bitten, but it was still moving, circling around the slithering shapes of the snakes. Saia climbed higher and sat at the top of the rock. She felt exposed, but it was too dark for the sentinels to see her. She could wait there until the boar was gone or, even better, until dawn.
She watched the animal move around the area, entering and leaving the trees. She could hear the snakes hiss in distress but couldn't see them anymore. She could only sit back and hope that they wouldn't wander too far, and that their presence would deter the boar from staying in the area.
Her head was pulsing from fear and fatigue. She scooted back on the flat top of the rock, so that dozing off wouldn't immediately mean falling down. She observed the movements of the boar until it disappeared behind the trees, still close enough for his rasping to be heard.
She opened the map on her knees and examined it until the dark was so deep she couldn't see it anymore. Her mouth was dry from the long walk in the forest, the conversation with Dan and the unexpected meeting with the boar, so she reached out to take the water bottle from her bag. Except it wasn't there: she had left it in her room to make space for more snakes.
She waited in the dark, severely disappointed with herself. She realized a part of her had really hoped Vizena would have fallen that night, that she'd been back with her family before morning. She hugged her legs and looked at the tops of the trees, then focused her gaze on the narrow line of sea she could see in the distance.
A thunder startled her. Rain started to pour down onto the mountain. Saia tilted her head backward and sighed. She mindlessly drank some drops of water, then remembered what Ebus had told her and closed her mouth. Still, she couldn't help but think at when she was still in Lausune, periodically deactivating Zeles to preserve his energy. The monks didn't know she was doing that, there wasn't anyone to purify the water or distribute bottles, and yet nobody had had any visions. And even if Ebus and Haina were serious about not drinking unpurified water, Coram had seemed unconcerned about it. Maybe cloud people's attacks weren't that frequent, or maybe they were relegated in the past.
She opened her mouth a bit, letting the rain in, at the same time raising her cupped hands in hope of catching enough drops.
She had a feeling someone was sneaking up on her, so she turned to look back. There were figures in the rain, lights far away in the forest.
The water was so good she gulped down the one in her hands. The light expanded, showing buildings of wood pressed one against the other, carpets swinging in front of doorways. It was day now, and people walked on stone roads on a barren terrain. There were humans, and other people who resembled humans but weren’t. They were all walking except for one, a person staring at her in the middle of it all. She tried to focus on their face, but it changed and moved like water.
“This is the last message,” a voice said somewhere behind Saia. “Then we will move…”
The words after that were as confused as if they'd been said underwater.
“ ... waiting for you there,” the voice continued, suddenly clear again.
Saia's vision tipped forward as if she'd just bent her head to look down. She saw the temple, the bay, and a line that connected the sea to the clouds.
“Bring it with you,” the voice said, and the vision started to dissolve.
Saia gasped when the pouring rain hit her face. The temple she’d seen was Vizena’s, the bay was Suimer’s. She'd seen her village.
She opened her hands, releasing the drops of water gathered there. The cloud people had sent her that vision. They knew about her village, they wanted something from her, and she hadn't understood what it was.
She hugged her knees, then forced herself to breathe slowly, trying to recall Ebus's exact words about cloud people: they sent visions to drive people crazy, to tip them against each other. They couldn't attack her village because Vizena was still protecting it, the only reason she could feel a bit glad she was still in her place. The only thing she needed to do was forget about it all.
Despite her resolution, she thought about the vision until morning, wide awake while the rain soaked her tunic. At the first lights of day, she climbed down and looked for the snakes, then went back to the village and her post, where her unsuspecting colleagues were waiting for her.