Taking Measure

— Taylor, Kravikas Desert —

Crevist rose in the morning as a thin sliver of distant yellow, signaling the equinox. Midsummer had arrived, and Taylor was looking down at Darkmaw's grave. It might be the biggest hole dug in modern times, a circular pit a little over one hundred meters across: wide enough that she couldn't touch the opposite sides at the same time when fully stretched out. It was sixty meters deep, with walls that canted slightly inward. Fully half of Red Tower's disciples and apprentices had been brought out to shape it and harden the interior. It was such a monumental effort that the earth around it had swollen: one had to go uphill to travel to the grave's edge.

They had learned a lot from their captive scorpion by reshaping its jail. Their species wasn't very good at digging through hard rock or climbing smooth surfaces, but they could get over a tall obstacle going sideways if they could reach the top with just one or two legs while balancing their weight on the opposite side. They could spit acidic bile and spray poison, but their vertical range was poor.

They could also spit rocks, which discovery cost one man his life. The unfortunate had gone out one night, drunk on date and melon brandy, to punish the source of all his losses. He hauled with him the chunks of his broken house and broken life, dragging them behind him in a rough sack that flattened the mischus behind him. Maybe the grieving man would have known better if Taylor hadn't left the fragment mounted there to counter the creature's aura. But the light was there, and the wicked thing was plainly visible. Watchmen followed the commotion: first the yelling and the crying, then the violent threats and the sound of rocks bounding off hard scorpion armor. They arrived in time to see half the mourner's head cave in from below, as the monster spit debris back at him.

That was why the pit had angled sides: to spoil the range and aim of scorpions spitting rocks.

Getting the horrid girl's measurements had turned into a surveyor's job because nobody could run a knotted string to her and ask politely if she would mind standing still while her girth was taken. Sir Farr and Madam Lilian put together a fine theodolite, a half-meter wide, with finely machined marks at quarter-degree intervals and precision-cut sights. This came attached to a book of sines and tangents and a priestess who excelled in all the math and building courses from Lector Manu. The frightened woman had to be ferried out to Sand Castle by a disciple using Overlook, and then hauled aloft like baggage. It was a trial for her, but once she was on site, she did a beautiful job. Taylor held a poster-sized diagram in his hand with every span and every limb carefully detailed and measured.

The pit would hold her but they still had to get her into it. She was just as insanely aggressive as her children, and would chase anything that moved. They just needed someone fast enough to outrun her.

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

The jimala standing next to Taylor gave him an unmistakable eye-roll. They'd held a race: every disciple and hunter who craved the honor of baiting Darkmaw had run their best mounts. The jimala had joined the race from far behind, surprising everyone, and finished far ahead. Iraj was a distant second, mounted on a horse taken from the Satomen. The remainder of the field barely rated a mention.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"This will help you." He put a chain of linked tirun scales around the jimala's neck and secured it with straps running under his front legs. "It'll hold the enhancements longer, and guide you to the path that goes over the pit." Narrow beams of light, one red and the other green, shot out from the center scale. "The green light points at the near end of the path. The red light points at the far end. When they line up, you're lined up on the path. When the beams of light get very short, so is your distance to safety. We're going to practice."

The jimala blew his disdain and stomped a hoof on the ground twice.

"Don't be cocky, jimala," Taylor scolded, "you haven't seen her. You're going to be running for your life, I promise. If she gets too close, you can use long serpentines to open up distance but it puts you off your line. If she catches you, you die horribly. If you miss the pit and get lost, she'll exhaust you, and you die horribly. If you miss the safe path over the pit, you fall and die horribly. I set up a training path down there so you can practice until it's second nature."

The jimala grumbled. It might be mocking him.

Iraj chose that moment to climb the hill and join them. "Survive with style, jimala, and you'll rest your panting head on the soft bosoms of many women! They will lavish you with garlands of flowers, and sing to you on winter nights. Ignore the little maul, and you'll miss out on all the rewards!"

The antelope-ish shape-shifter stamped both front hooves at once, impatient to be off.

"Since you think it's so easy, we'll do it at speed." Taylor hit him with the maximum enhancements he could endure. "I'll be watching. Go!"

"I never imagined anything so fast." Iraj tracked the tawny blur mainly by the line of rising dust it left behind.

"For a surface animal, he's remarkable," agreed Taylor, tracking him with enchanted goggles. "But he's going to miss the … yeah, he missed the path. Cocky four-legs, thinks he doesn't need anything but speed. I'm trying to save his life here." He handed the goggles to Iraj.

"He's a young man. You have to motivate him properly."

"By volunteering women without their knowledge? What would they say?"

"Great feats set a young woman's heart aflame. They'll compete to dance with him in the gathering hour and ask his doyenne for children. Gardens will want him for a husband. He's taking it slower now. See? He can learn." Iraj handed back the goggles. They watched the jimala practice his approach from different angles and at increasing speeds.

"Face me, little maul. I have something serious to say." They faced each other, and Iraj put his hands on Taylor's shoulders. "As the new maul of Pashtuk, it falls to me to talk to you about your khartang. Khartang is a great honor, not given to most mauls. It says Pashtuk recognizes your uncommon leadership in a time of peril, and speaks to your ability and wisdom. You will receive a symbol of our garden, and you must protect it from loss or harm. It is shameful to lose the khartang. If you cannot protect it, then it is better to return it than lose it. When you die, it cannot be handed down to your children but must be returned to us."

"I understand, Maul Iraj." The young maul was appropriately solemn, which gave Iraj pride. Their friendship should be long and rewarding.

"Good." Iraj released him. "For the ceremony, you will need a deed of strength and a deed of heart."

"Killing Darkmaw doesn't qualify as a deed of strength?"

"It does if people witness it. What will you do for your heart?"

"Music, I suppose. I'm a pretty fair singer."

"I hope you're better than fair," Iraj admonished him. "Your heart should be as great as your arm if you're worthy of khartang."

"I'll manage." Taylor was suddenly filled with a new idea and grinned with excitement. "She's an epic monster. It'll take an epic song to match her. Oh, Iraj!" Taylor's laughter bubbled up, long and free, from his belly to the sky, gathering volume. He shouted to the air, "This is going to be epic!"

Iraj cast a nervous look at the youth's guard, Inez.

"You're the one who encouraged him," she accused, "now you get what you get."