Yuliko stood with the other potential journeyers from her tribe. She could feel the warmth of the Great Maw’Goro beneath her bare feet. They all stood in a line upon the obsidian mound, made from the hardened blood of Maw’Goro, who towered over the landscape, a plume of thick black smoke billowing out its peak. All the land within view of the volcano belonged to the great spirit, and therefore was the domain of the Black Glass People, but the lava yard in particular was sacred.

The potential journeyers were all the eligible youth of the Ibex Clan, one of the five clans that make up the Black Glass Tribe. Their clan revered the ibexes, the fierce mountain goats with oversized hook-like horns. Only Maw’Goro, creator of the land itself, deserved the clan’s respect more than their namesake.

Upon being nominated to participate in the Great Journey, their next step will be to venture deep into the lava yard, close to the heart of Maw’Goro, and select an obsidian core which will be fashioned into their ritual blade. In order to participate in the Great Journey the individual must be nominated by two clan members. Usually a youth would be nominated by the master they had apprenticed under, and one other clan member who best knew if the youth was ready to be elevated to an adult member of the tribe. However, Yuliko had no master, and most of the clan avoided her.

Yuliko was a slender girl with sandy brown hair and blue-green eyes. She wore a chest wrap and skirt made of softened goat skin. She and the others carried their bags and weapons for they would be departing once the nominations were completed. Her feet were bare so she would be physically touching Maw’Goro’s earth. Yuliko’s palm sweated holding her obsidian-tipped spear, which was unusual for her; her palms never sweated during a hunt.

Each of the other potential journeyers had been training for their future roles in the tribe for over two years. Krissa had much experience as the shaman’s apprentice. And Minty as the healer’s apprentice. Kardan had been well trained by Lion, the best obsidian knapper in the whole tribe. And Zana and Pyker were both highly skilled hunters. There was no question that any of them would be nominated.

Then there was Faydayo, the chieftain’s apprentice, who had only been so for less than a year. Formerly he had been training to be the lead hunter, but after Yuliko had been stripped of her status as chieftain's apprentice and heir, then Faydayo was raised to the position. He had not been humble about his advancement, even now he stood with a puffed up chest and a casual smirk on his face.

Now Yuliko’s future position in the clan was as uncertain as her chance of being nominated. She stared down from the mound, looking at the crowd of tribe members. Only the full-fledged adult members of the clan were permitted to witness the nomination ritual. The ineligible youth and the thralls were all back at the Ibex camp, preparing for the feast for the following evening.

Behind the observers lay the treeline of the volcanic rainforest the Black Glass People dwelt within. It had been at a border area between the lava yard and the forest where Yuliko had her incident with the green man. Where the earth had shook, and where she had almost died. In her vision she glimpsed for an instant the antlered man was watching from behind the trees. But she blinked and the green man had disappeared.

She turned her focus upon the faces of those with the power to nominate her. Her father and former mentor, Chief Domylo, stood at the front of the crowd, gazing impassively at the lined up youth. He was a tall man, wore his hair in a topknot with gray streaks over the temples, and he wore his snakeskin vest. His chest was exposed, prominently displaying the vertical white scar over his heart, the mark from his ritual blade when he was a youth taking the Pledge Rite. All the full-fledged clan members had the same scar.

Domylo carried the simple painted ibex horn totem, the temporary replacement for the ancient totem Yuliko had lost. He refused to make eye contact with her or acknowledge her at all. There was no hope he would speak for her.

There was also her mother standing beside him. She was wearing one of the brightly feathered headbands that she loved. Yuliko could hardly remember a time when her mother wasn’t ornamented in the feathers of parrots or macaws. In stark contrast to Chieftain Domylo, his wife Kuli smiled as much as she was colorful. Yet when her eyes met Yuliko’s there was a shade of gloom behind her pleasant expression. It was the same look her mother would give her after the incident, when she would tell Yuliko that everything would be alright.

Of course, nothing had been alright after the incident. She had been entrusted with the clan’s totem; an elegantly carved ibex horn, bedecked with rings of obsidian and red jasper, and the clan’s most precious possession. And she had lost it.

The Black Glass People are nomads who migrate around the rainforest surrounding the volcano. They must receive the blessing of the Great Maw’Goro before they may move to their next camping ground. A year ago, Yuliko was returning from taking the totem to where Maw’Goro’s hot blood flows—the only worthy place to request a resettlement blessing—and at the treeline between the forest and the lava yard, a tremor shook the ground, knocking Yuliko to her knees, protecting the horn with her body. And when the tremors stopped Yuliko looked up to see an antlered man-beast emerging out of the trees. He charged at her, and pierced her just beneath the ribs.

She remembered laying on the rocks, bleeding out, but she still held onto the clan totem. The beast-man stood over her. It had dappled skin like a doe, a muzzle like a buck, and hooved feet. It wore a tunic, so she could not see if it had a tail like a deer or not. The green man plucked the ibex horn from her hands. It stared at her with sad looking black eyes. Then it touched a hand over her wound and spoke some words in a language Yuliko did not understand. Then the man-beast left her for dead.

She was found hours later barely holding onto life. The clan healer, Makala, was able to patch up the wicked antler wound, but Yuliko had caught a fever that overtook her for many days. Everyone was overjoyed when her fever broke and Makala determined, by some miracle, she would live. But after she told her tale of how the totem was stolen, they had all turned against her. They called her a fool for confusing a common buck for a green man. Or, it could have been an intruder in an antler helm. Her fever must have cooked her mind. All the green men had gone extinct ages ago. Also, there were those that called her a liar, Krissa in particular. They accused her of making up a story to cover up losing the totem. Some even accused her of hurting herself.

And if they didn’t call her a liar or a fool, then they called her cursed. The most superstitious of the clan were afraid Yuliko would attract the green man back again. Uzban, the master potter, insists it was a curse that would bring double misfortune since she was the chieftain’s daughter. And there were those like Davanu, the master tanner, who whispered that Yuliko’s curse meant Domylo should not be the chieftain anymore with the trouble his daughter has wrought.

According to the legends, the green men were dapple-skinned antlered people that once walked among the other thinking species. The green men were said to have lived in parts of the woods that man kin could never find without guidance, passageways to the Other World, where magic was strong. But the green men would sometimes leave their hidden homes to trade for man kin goods, and were said to even occasionally share their magic. There are some stories where the green men trade magic gifts in exchange for man kin children. In other stories the green men steal children by tricking parents into leaving their children in the woods. But all that was the ancient past. The only thinking species anyone from the Black Glass Tribe had ever encountered were other man kin and their closely related cousins; the stout-bodied flatheads, and the tiny squirrel people.

The loss of the totem, and Yuliko’s preposterous story, brought great shame to the clan. The Ibexes had once been of the highest status amongst the five clans, with her father, Domylo, serving as the High Chieftain of the Glass Tribe; but there were few greater marks of defeat than for a clan to lose their totem, so the Ibexes became the lowest status, and Domylo lost his High Chieftain position to the chieftain of the Razor Boar Clan.

And of course, no clan members would follow the girl who lost their sacred totem and lost their clan's status, so Domylo was forced to denounce Yuliko as his apprentice and heir.

Yuliko scanned the rest of the tribespeople attending the nominations. She saw Makala amongst them. Yuliko had spent much time with the healer after her injury. Makala was fond of explaining her work as she busied about, and Yuliko had learned much just from listening while lying in the healer’s hut. And she did not show any animosity towards Yuliko after the incident, which she was eternally thankful for. Yuliko had desperately wished for Makala to take her on as an apprentice alongside her current pupil, Minty. But even though Makala didn’t blame her for what happened, she considered Yuliko marked by a bad spirit and refused to take her on as a formal student.

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There was only one other face in the crowd that Yuliko had any hope of nominating her. She spotted the bushy brown beard of Lion, the obsidian master. Yuliko had been bedridden for months after the incident, but when she had finally healed enough to move about, the ostracization made her wish to hide back in the tent. They all hated her. They mocked her. No other masters wished to teach her. All except Lion, who was unconcerned with the past.

She remembered when he first showed her the proper way to knap the outer edges of an obsidian core, at a time when she felt most lonely and hopeless. The rough exterior must be flaked off to shape the perfect tool, he had told her. But we could not create the right shape if we did not have the rough sides to work with. The past must be flaked off too, and the right shape will emerge.

She had precious few months between her healing and the Great Journey, where she followed Lion’s instructions and learned to knap obsidian into finely fashioned tools. She was nowhere near as good as Kardan, who had studied under Lion much longer, but Yuliko thought she had been doing well.

If Yuliko was not nominated she would have to wait until the next Great Journey to ascend to adulthood, and that could be years from now. Or worse, she may never get to make her Great Journey, and she would become a thrall, one of the lowest status members of the clan with no rights.

The Great Journey was not merely an adulthood ritual, but it was the very foundation of Black Glass Tribe society. All the lands under the shadow of Maw’Goro were gifted to the Glass People by the great spirit. In exchange, the tribe was duty-bound to protect Maw’Goro’s realm, and to deliver worthy tributes to the volcano spirit. During the Great Journey, the journeyers are to travel beyond the shadow of Maw’Goro into the far lands, where they are to seek out and acquire the tributes. The most valued tribute a journey party could offer was the totem of a foreign clan, but other treasures were also worthy, like the gold and silver rings people in the far lands sometimes wear, and finely made pottery, carvings, and weavings from the far lands too.

Journey parties may also bring back thralls as tribute to the volcano. The current high chieftain, Vogon of the Razor Boar Clan, his party had brought back the largest offering of thralls in known memory. The captives had been snake spirit worshippers to the south. They had been a most worthy tribute to the fiery heart of the volcano.

Keeping the continued favor of Maw’Goro was the main purpose of the Great Journey, but it served other purposes as well. The rainforest around the volcano was vast, and the Black Glass People were few—maintaining a balanced population was an important part of protecting Maw’Goro’s realm—so the clans rarely had need to traverse beyond their own territory. The journeyers brought back important news about the ongoings of the far lands. The party leader was even permitted to act as the tribe’s emissary and build friendships with other groups. And most critically, the journeyers could alert the chieftains to any potential threats.

Yuliko needed to go on this Great Journey. It could be her only chance to redeem herself. If she were to help bring back a high value tribute, then she may shed some of the shame she had brought upon the clan.

Eshika, the clan shaman, stood between the crowd of tribe members and the youth on the mound. She wore a red-dyed ibex fur wrap, with a puffy wool collar, a shade darker scarlet. The outfit contrasted startlingly with her bright blue eyes. She waved a smoking bundle of herb brush in the direction of Maw’Goro, reciting the vows of service required to harvest the volcano’s bounties. The billowing smoke told Eshika that the spirit has accepted the vows and that the nomination process may begin.

Eshika had questioned Yuliko about the incident many times as she lay in recovery. Though the shaman never volunteered what she thought the meaning of any of it had been. But she was always curious about how Yuliko’s wound was healing, which Makala said was a wonder of the spirits.

Faydayo, as the chieftain’s apprentice, was the first to stand for nomination. He practically strutted as he marched down the mound in position beside the shaman. Across the center of his chest he had tattooed a large triangle made up of smaller concentric triangles. The triangle was the symbol for the great volcano spirit.

“This young man stands before the Glass People and says he is worthy of the Great Journey,” Eshika announced. “Who here nominates this one to make his Great Journey and join the Ibex Clan as an adult?”

Chieftain Domylo raised a fist to the air. He met Faydayo’s eyes squarely. “I say this young man is worthy.”

The chieftain’s nomination was quickly seconded by Nabu, the lead hunter, who had been Faydayo’s master before his elevation to chieftain’s heir.

Eshika dipped her hand in a bowl of red ocher paste. With her red palm she printed the ocher over one side of Faydayo’s face, fingers crossing over his eye. “This young man shall be taking the pledge, and shall be the leader of his mo’huran,” she said.

A mo’huran was the band of journeyers. The bonds formed amongst a mo’huran were said to be unbreakable and life-lasting. Faydayo’s first task as the mo’huran leader would be leading the excursion for their ritual blade cores.

With his place confirmed, Faydayo moved towards the empty canal the nominees would follow into the lava yard. He flashed his smirk at Yuliko as he walked.

Next, Eshika called forth Krissa, her own apprentice, and gave her the nomination. And she was seconded by Waylu, the cook master. Then the shaman picked up a second bowl with a black charcoal paste. She dipped the black over her red hand, and marked Krissa with a black handprint across her belly, over her navel.

Krissa took her position lined up behind Faydayo near the canal. Yuliko observed the two of them briefly touch their fingertips together, before taking the upright ceremonial stance. Though it was no secret that Faydayo claimed Krissa.

The same nomination procedure continued with the other potential journeyers, saving Yuliko for last since she had the lowest status. The others all had their masters grant the first nomination, and had another more-than-willing adult to grant them their second. Even Minty, who was so shy and awkward she barely spoke to the adults besides Makala, got an instant secondary nomination from Tarbak the shepherd, for she routinely treated his foot pains. Eshika marked all the others with black handprints, in places across the body that only the shaman understood the significance of. Besides the face and belly, some were handprinted across their forearm, chest, or thigh.

Yuliko stood alone atop the obsidian mound, until she was finally called to stand beside Eshika. Now, as the last remaining youth and standing directly before her father, the chieftain would still not meet her eyes.

“This young woman stands before the Glass People and says she is worthy of the Great Journey. Who here nominates this one to make her Great Journey and join the Ibex Clan as an adult?”

And to Yuliko’s great relief, Lion raised his fist. “I say this young woman is worthy.” He smiled at her through his bushy beard, and she smiled back. He had only been teaching her a short time, and he had never even formally declared himself as her master. Lion staked his reputation on Yuliko, so his endorsement of her was not taken lightly.

Yuliko was touched by Lion’s approval of her; but silence followed his speaking for her, and the warmth she felt gradually turned into cold terror. No one spoke up to second her.

She turned to Makala with desperation in her eyes. Just because she couldn’t take Yuliko as an apprentice didn’t mean she couldn’t nominate her, right? But Makala only looked downward.

Yuliko turned to her mother. Surely, she knew that her daughter was ready for the Great Journey. She had to know it wasn’t Yuliko’s fault the totem was stolen. But Kuli had lost her bright smile, and the gloominess showed through. She offered her daughter a sad apology with her eyes. Yuliko realized her father had forbidden her mother from speaking for her.

Finally, the chieftain decided to meet Yuliko’s gaze. She did not try to hide the hurt in her eyes. The anger. The rejection. The betrayal. She wanted him to see it. She knew he always blamed her. Even if he believed a green man had stolen the totem, he still blamed her.

He stared back at her with shame.

The heavy silence weighed over the lava yard. Yuliko would remain as the lowest status, even as those younger than her readied for the next Journey. She may remain low status forever. She may be cast into the lot of a thrall. Her future suddenly looked very grim, and unlike the rough exterior of an obsidian core, she could not flake it off.

Yuliko felt a sudden fury burn within her, a blood-boiling anger at the unfairness of it all. It wasn’t her fault the green man came for her. She had fallen during the tremor. She had been attacked. She had held onto the totem with her dying strength, but that wasn’t enough. And now she was being punished for it. Now she wouldn’t even have the opportunity to redeem herself.

Maybe it had been her fault. Yuliko vividly remembered the moment she saw the green man walk out from the trees. She had been so scared. She had been petrified. If she could have ran, even just a moment sooner, she might have saved the totem, and saved herself from all the misery that followed. Her fiery anger turned towards herself for her cowardice.

The raging silence, the profound lack of a second nomination, was finally broken by Faydayo snickering with his friends in the lineup of nominees. However, Eshika flashed a glare that quieted them.

Then the shaman looked out over the clan members who had rejected the girl, then she turned and stared Yuliko over with her striking blue eyes, which crawled down to the antler piercing scar beneath the slender girl’s ribs. After a moment, the shaman raised her fist and declared, “I say this young woman is worthy.”

Then the shaman dipped her palm back into the red ocher, and marked Yuliko with a red hand over her scar.