Chapter Fifty Four

An eerie sensation fell over Carza, almost a week after the feast. Her documents were... coming together. Themes were growing, strains of thought were solidifying, and increasingly new data wasn't just added to the pile, but had little thoughts about 'ah yes, that'll make a good counterpoint' or 'that's an interesting juxtaposition' or 'that's a quote I should be putting in the forefront of a chapter'. Chaos was giving way to structure, and her notes were growing significantly more organised as time went on. She had enough for a decent-sized book at this point... well, one that she could rip to pieces after a couple of weeks. But she had the themes going. Conflict avoidance and luck. Two basic strains of thought which defined the culture in this part of the steppe. Conflict avoidance: the desire to avoid grudges, to maintain equilibrium, to prevent chaos from breaking out. Raiding was permitted (as long as it abided by certain rules), there were systems for negating grudges (feasts, peace banners, apologies, the saying 'your boot at my throat')... honestly, it wasn't unlike the concept of 'rules of war' back home. An acceptance that war was an inevitable thing, simply another aspect of diplomacy, so the wise thing wasn't to sit still and pretend war would never happen, but to develop rules for when it did. And the principle even extended to the afterlife. The dead should be forgotten. The past should vanish as quickly as it was born, mankind ought to live in a shallow pool of light. The future and the past should both become shadows, unknown and unknowable.

If the dead were remembered, they became dangerous. When they were forgotten, they could pass on to an afterlife where everything mortal was slowly stripped away. Left to float around in the earth while the soul descended deeper and deeper. To find peace. Put this species in an interesting position, given their ancestors were seemingly immortal. Part of her was annoyed - they'd burned their genealogies at one point, because it was considered 'excessive remembrance'. So, in short, they'd erased their history in order to make their existence more palatable to the world around them. Smoothing out their harsh edges. Not that Carza was going to deride them for that, but she did wish they'd preserved a little... would've been nice to give some historical context to their culture. Luck, she'd already expounded on. Had some good ideas there. But even that seemed to reflect the final strain, the pivotal point on which this culture operated - precariousness.

The Scabrous came when they pleased, with no rhyme or reason. Inclement weather could destroy a family. A single person violating the rules of war could make a raid spiral into a grudge, into a series of curses. The world was precarious, and luck was the invisible force that shifted people from side to side, supporting them as they balanced on the edge of a razor. Or, alternatively, destabilising them, sending them plummeting down into the dark.

Might make a good title. The Precarious World. Two titles, then. One long and descriptive, the other a little snappy. Like her pulp novels, they always had good titles. The Scarlet Emblem, that was good... or the Eagle Soars at Noon. Or the entire series about the enigmatic 'Toff', a striking gentleman detective who went on rollicking adventures across the continent, where it became obvious the author had never been to anywhere on the continent besides his own city. The Toff Emerges, The Toff Strikes Again, Midnight of the Toff, and her personal favourite, The Toff Goes Gay. The novel where the Toff decided to have a night on the town, becoming gay and merry, and in the process attracting the ire of no less than seven women. She'd had to close it several times, terrified that something scandalous was about to happen... but no. The series was excellent at keeping things clean. Leaving it all to innuendo and inference.

...she missed her novels. She missed theatrophone plays. Kani might like them, if she didn't find it all to be tiresome and pointless.

...maybe hold off before showing her The Toff Goes Gay. It was very culturally specific humour.

So... the book was coming together. She had ideas. Real ideas. Not just for this, but for future elements. Reinterpretations. If Kani could come back with her across the mountains, then it'd be even better, she'd be able to publish their teatime chats as anthropological textbooks. As much as she didn't want to think about the situation this way, she was a milkmaid, and right now she had a giant pile of cows in front of her. And one of the cows was nuzzling her hand, possibly considering going along with her. In which case, she'd get all the milk she could ever want.

...urgh, that was an awful way of thinking about things. Terrible. Dehumanising.

Dedemigodising?

...dehumanising. Just leave it at that.

Plus, there was no guarantee on Kani coming with her. Kani had said nothing on the topic since their brief conversation, and Carza hadn't pushed her. That felt like a recipe for getting a flat refusal instead of an ambiguous 'I'll think about it'. But Carza was increasingly interested in the idea, just as a possibility. Sure, she thought about the downsides. Kani would be completely alone over there, no family, only one friend (at least going in), and possibly the only member of her species on that side of the mountains. It'd be lonely, and... well, Carza could imagine the problems. Quite easily. She imagined Kani remaining indoors to avoid staring eyes, imagined her struggling to adjust to a city instead of the rolling steppe, missing her family, speaking a language that was only really understandable to Carza, and some people in the Court of Horn. Oh, and other Horn-era scholars. So... not many people at all, honestly. It'd be lonely, the food would be different, and... well, it was easy to think of negatives. Positives? Kani might get to explore other options in her life, wouldn't need to worry about getting kidnapped by a raiding party, or dying to inclement weather... might be able to quietly dismount from the razor's-edge existence out here. More than that, she could see if there was something else she wanted to do with herself. There was a whole suite of professions back home for her to dabble in, which didn't involve herding horses and sheep for the rest of her life.

...was she being patronising?

'Oh, you poor little steppe-savage, you must come back to civilisation on the grounds that you're too good for this awful, awful place...'

That was fairly patronising... but then again, was it worse to go 'don't worry, I respect your independence and your right to live as you wish. So please, stay on the steppe and be kidnapped before dying of some easily preventable disease. I'm letting you suffer because it proves you're independent'.

Gah. She hated moral dilemmas. She wasn't a philosopher, she was better than their breed. Always talking about what was right and wrong... she preferred to think of cultural definitions of right and wrong. Elevated herself beyond such petty struggles. Founder, she was even missing office politics, where she got to act snooty towards other subjects while they acted snooty towards her in turn... gah. Gah. She needed a smoke... only a few cigarillos left, though... but she could always get Kani to light up another Horn of the Ancestors, even if that tended to make her utterly incapable of civilised thought for the rest of the day. And also made her very hungry, for reasons she couldn't quite fathom. Why would smoke make her hungry? How did that work? Of course, she only thought about this when she wasn't smoking it. When she did, she thought about very little.

...she lit up a cigarillo. Needed to keep her brain sharp.

Because the winter was coming in. Autumn was slowly dying, and every morning the frost clung to the grass for a little longer before melting. She reckoned each day by how long the steps of her horse were met with snaps from the brittle ground... thus far, it lasted almost up to noon. When she'd arrived, there'd been no frost at all. Winter set in quickly here, and she could tell why people feared it so much. When she slept, she slept deeply, and found it harder to get out of bed. Her typewriter protested when she opened it up in the morning, mechanisms aching to stay still, stiffened by the deepening chill. Insects were fewer. Animals were quieter, and came closer to the camp each night, interested in any fragment of heat, no matter what danger it signified. Most animals in general were either fat and ready to hibernate, or thin, half-dead, exhausted and ready to lie down. Death by nomad and death by cold were still death, and some part of them recognised that. She remembered the first hare she'd seen, shrivelled by lean days and cold nights. Wide, dark eyes. Fur succumbing, lank as the stalks of a dead plant. It had come close to the fire, twitching... paused. Stared at her. And she thought that if the hare believed it possible to kill her... it'd damn well try. Just for a scrap of sustenance.

One of the reasons she was always a bit nervous of horses as a child, actually. Her fellow scholars seemed to think of the animal kingdom as divided into kindly herbivores and vicious carnivores. But Carza knew better. A whole host of 'herbivores' were just... omnivores that hadn't quite specialised in meat. She'd seen horses take chunks out of people. And she thought this hare would do the same if it could. Hunger was hunger - when it was roused, there wasn't much difference between grass, plants, dead bodies, or small, squirming bodies that wouldn't put up much of a fight.

And as the chill worsened, the nervousness grew. Tobok smiled less, and spent most of his days scanning the horizon. Fearful of snows. They were trying to get to a valley, and... Carza remembered that a clan, the Kralist, had been sealed inside their valley by snowfall. If they had been sealed in, maybe this valley would be the same. An early blizzard just... snapping it shut like a bear trap. And they'd be left outside to freeze. Interestingly, though, she saw yet more unnatural biology at work here. The cold didn't seem to affect her hosts. But it affected their horses, their quarry during hunts... they drank like fiends in the night, when all practical knowledge told her that one shouldn't be drinking. Created an illusion of warmth, but turned the organs to ice. Even Mrs Cauldron could put away massive quantities of fermented milk when idle, razor-sharp snowflakes trickled down from the pitch-black sky. And when Carza asked Tobok, he grumbled, shrugged, and said:

"Lights a fire in our bellies. Cold is fine. But not for the animals."

Carza remembered the ancestors up in the mountains... in the dead of winter, most things would die, but not them. Never them. A privilege extended to their descendants, too... but who cared if you could survive the cold, when starvation set in?

Carza had to watch as they drank themselves silly, downing huge quantities before they could lie, sprawled, over any available surface. They didn't sleep, just... dozed. But every few days, an animal would have to die. Killed in a cunning way to stop any blood from hitting the ground, and then butchered for whatever they could salvage. Tobok talked loudly about making sculptures from ice, huge containers which could hold meat and preserve it for months, if they were lucky. Not cold enough for that yet, but... food was still lasting a bit longer. One of the few blessings. But even with that, Tobok looked grim. Worried.

And one night, it came to a head.

They drank less. They ate little. And the entire family sat in a small circle around a fire, warming themselves and pondering the future. Without any ceremony, Tobok stood. His face was dark.

"We are close."

Dog shivered, and Mrs Cauldron tutted quietly while knitting away at some new robe or another.

"The mountains are nearby. And I can smell something in the air. They're here. And I must consult."

Oh.

Oh dear.

She could read between the lines there. They were calling an ancestor. They could smell them - their noses not quite refined enough to understand the scent-language, but perfect capable of recognising when it was in the air. Those things were close... each and every one of them, larger than her, stronger than her, and immortal. And perfectly entitled to rip her apart for what she'd done, even if she felt perfectly entitled to have done it. Kani twitched uncomfortably, but otherwise remained still.

"How should we call them, father?"

"...hm, the wind's in our favour... might as well not use the horn. Get the herbs."

A minute later, they had several huge pouches of brown horsehide, each one filled to the brim with various herbs, some new, some old, some foreign, some local. She saw flowers coloured a deep purple, and roots which formed elegant, geometrically perfect spirals. Bulbs coated in golden dust that made her eyes water and her skin itch. Green leaves, yellow leaves, red leaves, leaves which shimmered and leaves which were coated in dust from years of neglect... sometimes nothing but powder was left, the dried herbs ground into the finest of particles, trickling like streams of black sand, lighter than air... the fire was encouraged to newer heights and brighter lights. Too fast. Carza had barely rationalised what was happening - they were calling an ancestor. They were calling a damn ancestor.

Possibility one - the ancestor would recognise her. This was a worst case scenario. But the question was... sight, smell, hearing? How could it recognise her? Would leaving the camp help? Could she just conceal her face a little... she positioned herself a little. If she was hit by a wave of smoke from the fire, when it was brimming with scented herbs, she might just load herself down with enough scents to disguise... basically everything else. Hearing... easy enough, just stay quiet. But this all... it... what had she been wearing in the mountains? She rushed to her tent, and began rummaging. Come on, something else, something unusual, something... Kani's voice broke her ecstasy of searching.

"What are you doing?"

"Just... looking for some new clothes."

"It's just an ancestor. We consult them fairly often, you don't need to get dressed up."

"...I know, I know, but..."

She trailed off. Come on, think... right.

"I don't want to stand out. You said they're immortal - this ancestor could be hundreds of years old, possibly older. And if that's the case, I don't want to wear something obviously foreign. I... know some older people who tend to take exception to things being different around them, so it's just easier to play by the rules. You see?"

Weak argument. But Kani was as stressed as she was - for a multiplicity of reasons - and she shrugged.

"Well, you're not going to get far with your things. Come, we've got similar sizes."

She shucked off her robe-coat easily, before reaching to her own side of the tent for a spare. Carza immediately wrapped herself up. Not ideal - her trousers were still tweed, not a material she'd seen around here. Her boots... workable, yes, but still a bit foreign. The robe covered her well, though. Kani was a little taller than her. Back home, she'd be something of a giant, her entire family would. It meant the robe trailed down to her calves, covering up most of her body... clearly too large, but it would work.

Corks, this thing was warm.

Kani's face was utterly flat.

"You look enchanting."

"Do I?"

"You look like a small rat wrapped up in a very thick blanket. Very endearing."

"I will bite you."

"This proves my point."

"Shut up."

Kani cracked a very, very tiny smile.

"You look perfectly fine. Come on. The herbs are being lit."

Indeed they were, releasing huge gouts of smoke into the gloomy sky. The fire turned a whole host of colours as new herbs were added, and Tobok was spluttering - he'd duck his head into the smoke, sniff deeply, cough wildly, then wheeze out instructions for some more herbs, or when his voice gave out completely, he'd just add the herbs himself. Adjusting based on the temperature of the air, the consistency of the fuel, any amount of contaminating moisture... some wisps of scented smoke leaked away from the central pillar, and Carza caught a strong whiff of... madness. Nasal madness. An imitation of the perfume in the mountains. But that had an animal pungency to it, a kind of natural harmony. This was a pile of herbs shovelled onto a fire. It was easy to imagine the perfumed mountains to be encoded with a kind of language, the scent was complex enough to allow for a whole damn grammar. This was... more crude. The difference between someone explaining themselves lucidly, clearly, elaborately... and someone screaming madly while waving some flags in a crude imitation of semaphore. Not that she was going to say any of this out loud. Indeed, as the pillar shifted...

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"Carza, what are you-"

But Carza had already dunked her head into the smoke. Her whole upper body, actually. Effects were immediate. Her face was on fire. Her nose hated her. Her eyes had decided to start a dirty protest. Her pores were turning into volcanoes. Her throat was engaged in the process of turning itself inside out while squealing like a stuck pig. Hands were around her shoulders, yanking her back... she allowed them to. Probably should go back in for another dip, but...

Oh good heavens. She appeared to have vomited.

"Carza, you blithering idiot, what on earth were you thinking?"

Kani was looking at her like she was a kitten playing around with jumping from very high places it had no business to jump from. In short: very stupid.

"...just, uh, wanted to-"

She paused, coughing a few times. Oh, wow, throat was definitely in active rebellion...

"...have a sniff?"

She finished feebly. Kani's face wasn't flat. It was twitching from expression to expression.

"That's ridiculous."

Her hand grabbed Carza by the elbow, and started hauling her away like an errant child, an impression only worsened by the fact that she was taller and stronger than Carza. Shame filled her. She'd never been in trouble like this. She'd been a good child. 'Getting in trouble' usually just meant 'struggling to adjust from being an urchin'. Still remembered the outcry over hissing at someone who had stolen her food... in her defence, that little toad had been a very silly individual, and not even a very good academic. Sent off to be a secretary, as it turned out. Point was, she was good, she didn't get in trouble, and she didn't get hauled off by her elbow after doing something catastrophically stupid. But in her defence, once again, she felt justified. The scent of the herbs was in her hair, caked to her skin, everywhere the smoke had touched. Overpowering. She felt guilty about soaking a robe-coat with the scent, but... well, it could be washed. She'd wash it, if necessary.

If she survived.

The pillar rose higher, higher, and Carza splashed some water over her eyes just to stop them stinging. Bloodshot, definitely, and the eyelids were itching up a storm... the family gathered, most of them shooting Carza odd looks as she came to join them, wiping her nose as she went - freely running, dammit. Anyway. The smell in the air was potent, the fire was rising higher, the pillar of smoke disappeared from sight... the animals were shuffling uncomfortably, snorting as the smoke entered their nostrils. Tobok stood with his hands behind his back, like a soldier on parade, and the others arranged themselves appropriately. Mrs Cauldron flicked some dust from Carza's shoulder, while muttering:

"The older the ancestor, the grumpier they usually are. The eldest dislike having any form of eye contact. The younger ones are reasonable. Be polite, and look at the ground. I doubt the ancestor will have any business with you."

"...right. Right."

She wanted to ask more. The eldest, the youngest... were there other gradients? She imagined whole kingdoms up there, on the mountaintops... and she wondered what the Female's 'kingdom' had been. If the pass was occupied by one tribe, the peaks another, the slopes yet more... north to the eldest, south to the youngest... there had to be some variation. But she remained silent. Too nervous. The smoke rose...

The first sign of something changing was with the animals. The horses flattened their ears against the sides of their heads, and the sheep bleated in fright for a moment... before falling utterly silent. They moved quietly away, clearing one whole side of the camp, cowering behind the tents, away from the fire. Tobok's teeth were clenched - she could see his jaw changing shape as he did so, becoming more jagged, more sharp. Mrs Cauldron kept brushing her skirt down, and Dog... Dog was shooting Carza looks. The two hadn't exchanged more than a few words over the past few days, but sometimes... sometimes she saw him looking at her with a strange, indefinable expression. And she wondered if something was going to change there. Kani kept shooting Carza looks too, but they were more general concern, confusion... worry. A squeeze to Kani's hand reassured her - Carza was fine. Just looked a bi weird because of all the smoke in her eyes.

The second sign was the sniffing.

Some huge creature in the dark, sniffing curiously. Carza's breath tightened. Memories flooded. She remembered too much. A shadow out there, moving silently besides the occasional sniff... taller than her, twice as tall, easily. Smaller arms held close to the chest, larger arms used as additional legs for movement. Sharp snowflakes tumbled freely through the air, more than the last few nights... winter came fast. The ancestor prowled, sniffing, checking that nothing was amiss. She didn't... she hadn't thought they came this close to the steppe. Thought they were confined to the mountains. It was a silly assumption, they had legs, but... maybe she'd still thought of them like nightmares. And like nightmares, they were confined to their little realms. To the sleeping world. To the dreaming mountains. To the places where they were unchanging, and she could manoeuvre around.

And then...

Then it came into the light.

Carza almost screamed.

The tusks slid in first. Gleaming and silver. Carved elegantly with odd, abstract figures and simple-yet-perfect geometric patterns. Sharp as knives. Cutting the air. The same tusks that gored Hull, the same... no, it was a different creature, but it was still an ancestor. Something immortal and savage and perfect. No fighting it. Even her gun would be useless here, where it had room to move, time to dodge... allies. The people on either side of her would rather support their forefather, or foremother, than her.

She was a stranger in a strange land. And as the creature strode forwards, she realised that more keenly than ever. All her understandings and anthropological theories failed, all that remained was... was the reality of this nightmare.

The creature strode into the light, resting easily on its knuckles yet still towering over everyone. Even Tobok was like a child, could be crushed without much difficulty. The creature was a little different to the ones in the mountain pass. From a different era, most likely. Quite unlike the robe-coats the family wore. Completely different. And not just furs, something more. Some kind of... smooth, leathery stuff, made her think of the insides of a bat's wing, Could even see places where bones and tendons had once been. A pair of loose trousers made from the material, and something like a shirt... something. In areas it had worn through, and repairs had been made with furs. No cloth up in the mountains, or no point making it. Not thick enough. And the leather-stuff wasn't local, not at all. Maybe even from their original home. The fur was pale white and spotted, making her think of some monstrously large wildcat. Patches of the stuff, like the creature was furred, and in some places the fur was breaking through... just pelts. Just pelts used for patchwork. One of its hands was holding...

A pile of earth was flung into the fire.

Extinguishing it in seconds. The smoke ceased. The smell lost much of its vitality in a matter of moments. Darkness consumed them, nothing but a few lesser fires they used for the cauldrons... the creature faded from sight. It could see them just fine. Carza was blind. But she wasn't deaf. And she could hear something vast shuffling in the dark, breathing lightly through enormous lungs. She'd only caught a glimpse... but it reassured her. Not the same breed as in the pass. Might as well worry about someone from ALD IOM taking offence to a slight made in Krodaw to a Fidelizh citizen. Total lack of relation. Why had it extinguished the fire? To assert dominance? Oh, she was still frightened as all hell, but the immediate terror had declined, just for a moment. It it wanted anyone here dead, it would've attacked. So... so why worry?

Those things had already taken Hull from her. Ripped Anthan apart. Turned the expedition from a near-miss to a total catastrophe.

What else did they have to take?

Kani and her family. But if they did that, they'd be killing their own grandchildren. And she wanted, needed to believe that they still cared for that. Wouldn't have come, otherwise. Wouldn't have announced themselves.

The creature rumbled.

And Tobok spoke.

"Ancestor. Honoured. Greatest amongst our kind. Supreme patriarch, and god of mountains. I name myself Tobok, and my daughter Kani. The others are bound to namelessness by taboo, by half-mourning and marriage-service. My son announces your prestige to the west. And the fire announces it to the sky. And now we announce it to you and the mountains and the earth."

He paused, gathering his breath.

"...there's a valley. To the south. Our people meet there, from time to time. I need to know - are the snows fierce? Is the pass open? Have the Scabrous rode north, does the red star glow?"

The ancestor was impassive in the dark, a looming shadow in the dim light of the cauldron-fires, four-armed, with tusks sharp as swords. A living work of art. The nomadic ideal - art that could be carried with the creature, on its back, on its head, no need for boxes or bags or carts... art that lived with the maker and died with them. It rumbled slightly, tilting its head to one side... and spoke in a language Carza didn't understood. The same barking, snarling, clicking thing she'd heard in the pass. Memories flooded back. Running. Being hunted. Kani's hand found her own, squeezing it. Like Hull had done before the initiation into the Court of Ivory. A source of comfort - there was someone else in the world, someone calmer than her, someone to understand her feelings, and to stand as a rock against them. Reminding her of how small she was, and how the world could move without her, pass her by, and ignore her movements.

Why be afraid when she was alone? Why be afraid when she couldn't do anything about the thing that frightened her? Kani was calm. Her fear was silly, if it wasn't, others would share it.

Comfort via gentle peer pressure.

And it worked. A little. Enough.

Stopped her from running away, that was for sure.

Tobok coughed awkwardly.

"...uh..."

He seemed to be getting his thoughts together. Did they not speak the same language? Was there... a huge glassy hand reached out of the dark, and gripped Tobok around the head. For a second, Carza thought he was about to die, ripped in half like Anthan, but from the neck rather than the waist. But then... his head was wobbled side to side, a low chuckle echoing from the dark, along with a few more snapped words. It was teasing him. Calling him an idiot, presumably. Ignorant of his own people's language. Reminded her of a thug from the scholarium... a big brute, content with his inevitable fate of manual labour for the Court, hauling the books for brighter minds to consume. And so the scholarium became a great holiday. Very much the type to make others do his work for him, to stride around bold as brass and push those smaller and weaker than himself. Carza had always been a bit too half-feral and strange - don't go near that one, she has fleas, she's killed, she listens to forbidden theatrophone dramas where people are cut apart and recorded as they scream. But she'd seen it. And this seemed similar.

Tobok didn't resist. All the strength drained from his limbs like melting frost, and he remained absolutely limp. Mrs Cauldron bit her lip, looked down... and spoke, very quietly. She snarled, rasped, clicked... it was hesitant, but she spoke more of the language than her husband. The shaking stopped the moment she opened her mouth and spoke. The creature was watching her with four opalesque black eyes, glittering curiously. It rasped back... then released her husband. Inched forward, reaching out to run a sharp claw along her cheek, examining her... before reaching to her coat-robe and prodding it strangely. Wondering what it was. How it worked. Why she was wearing it. Oh, Founder, was it... no, it examined her, retreated, and allowed her to speak. More rasping, and clicking, and growling, and all manner of communication. Asking questions, receiving answers... Tobok looked down in shame, but otherwise did nothing. His wife had taken over. Kani seemed to relax slightly...

And finally, the creature growled back a final retort, and strode fully into the camp. Not swaggering, just... striding in, rearing up to its full height, a gesture of comfort and familiarity. It knew this place, and it intended to enjoy its time. It was titanic, and... and it grabbed one of the sheep with a single enormous hand. A pair of pinching fingers snapped its neck, ending the frantic, infantile bleating. A limp mass of wool and meat. A growl, and it kicked irritably at the smouldering remains of the fire, dispelling what remained of the scent. Wanted it all gone. Every last scrap. Irritating... maybe insulting. Maybe Tobok had insulted it in its own language, maybe Tobok was just screaming gibberish with those herbs and the creature had taken it poorly. Come along to shut up the howling idiot on the steppes, interrupting a good hunt. It glanced idly at Carza, and she thought she saw something in its eyes. Resignation. Bemusement. Human emotions, she'd learned to read them better on that monstrous face after so long around its descendants. It was tired of them. It was treating them with mild politeness, and moderate irritation. It didn't know the people here, it didn't care to know them, and the best it could get was a meal. That was all. That was all it wanted. Nothing more. Nothing less.

It felt no kinship with them. It had outgrown its children's children's children's children. They shared no language in common, they were foreigners to one another. Maybe that creature had come over here with the first migration. Maybe it had regretted it, or simply stopped caring.

She couldn't imagine that feeling. And she... she felt an urge to learn its spoken language and communicate with it. Ask it questions.

But then she saw those tusks. And remembered the feeling of cold lips pressing against her own, cradling a body as it grew to match the snow, seeing billowing black smoke rising high from a funeral pyre. And she wanted this thing gone. She wanted to never see it again. More anthropologists would come after her. Far more. And they could come here without any baggage and analyse those things in the mountains to their heart's content. She wouldn't need to think about it, and she could keep her studies to the sane and young, not the old, mad, and barbaric.

Leave it to the others. Leave it to them. And spare her having to see the thing that had killed Hull and ripped out a part of her heart.

And when the creature stalked off into the dark, and the family relaxed... she looked at Kani, and for a second saw that ancestor. One day Kani would be like that. She'd have tusks growing from the side of her thin, clever mouth, her eyes would glaze over with aged apathy, and she'd become so very, very tall... so powerful. Speaking with scents. Maybe for a while she'd remain basically normal, but over time she'd change. Lose herself day by day to a savage mentality that seemed to breed with great strength and too much time. Carza would die one day, be buried and remembered. And Kani would live forever.

For a second she saw everything Kani could become, and it terrified her.

Mrs Cauldron shuffled uncomfortably, trying to fill up the silence with movement.

"...well, that could've gone... worse."

Carza spoke quickly, not trusting her voice to remain steady.

"Is the valley open, then?"

"He didn't think it was closed. I think he... he said it was open, but the snows were growing stronger anyway. We ought to hurry."

Tobok grunted.

"Is that what he said?"

"More or less, darling."

"...I'm sorry. I didn't think we'd get someone that old. Hoped for younger."

"...me too. It's good that he wasn't…"

She coughed awkwardly. Kani explained in a low murmur.

"The ancestors differ. When you call them, you never know... well, if they're going to take offence to how things have changed. Some get angry when a wife speaks, some don't care. Some are fine with our taboos, some take exception to using anything which isn't traditional. When I was a child, an ancestor was called to advise on a raid, and she insisted on staying for much longer than is dignified. Had a soft spot for children, and wasn't of a generation that considered emotional attachment to one's descendants to be... improper."

Mrs Cauldron glanced over sharply.

"That one let you clamber on her tusks when you could barely speak. Highly unusual. Not to mention dangerous."

"I'm aware, mother."

Her voice dropped.

"But it was very fun, I still remember the feeling..."

Tobok clapped his hands loudly, drawing all attention to himself.

"Alright. We've made communion. And the ancestor has spoken. What did he say of the Scabrous?"

"No idea, he hadn't seen them, but he couldn't be sure."

"...then we ought to hurry. Butcher half the sheep, store the rest on the carts. We can't afford to slow down for them. We're changing horses regularly, no stops, and no camping - we ride through the night, rest only when we absolutely must. Wrap up tight. It'll be cold. Are you all ready?"

Nods all around.

"Then let's get going. Dog, gather the sheep. We butcher them tonight, ride closer to the mountains - colder, the meat won't spoil as quick."

A final clap, and the family scattered. Carza struggled out of her robe-coat, back into her tweeds, checking her buttons with slightly shaking fingers. The phantom pain over her stumps was crackling like frost at this point, a haze of pinpricks... the ghosts of nerves reminding her of the cold which took them away. Those tusks, those eyes... they'd brought memories back. And as much as she could see the humanity in those creatures now, the... intelligence, she couldn't get over the fact that one of them had killed her best friend. She shivered, and kept packing. They had a long ride ahead of them, and if she was moving, she wasn't worrying. Notes - stashed. Typewriter - packed away. She'd tried writing on horseback a few times. Interesting experience, but she made too many errors for comfort, and with the cold worsening she didn't want to trust her shivering fingers to make anything legible. The snows were gathering... and they were committing to the journey. Maybe before they'd had a chance to double back, to head somewhere else, but now... now they were in for it. Half the sheep butchered. Horses driven to exhaustion. Everything light and fast and urgent. Valley or nothing.

Founder, she hoped this wouldn't end horribly...

She packed her gun close. Not taking any chances. Things would go horribly, but ending horribly was up in the air. She'd lost all her friends, and she'd still managed to get to the other side of the mountains, had recovered, was making the expedition worthwhile... this could go the same. Hypotheticals danced in front of her, most awful, some... still awful, but a different flavour. Sole survivor: she wound up alone and afraid and needed to beg for shelter again. Kani and her: interesting prospect, tainted by the fact that Kani would be mourning her lost family, and would be the only one left to greet her brother. Tobok and her: odd, but workable, until Tobok needed to climb the mountain to ascend. Practically speaking, she'd just get introduced to another family and Tobok would leave. Better than being a sole survivor. Mrs Cauldron and her: very odd, and no idea how it might turn out. The two might end up sticking together, just until Mrs Cauldron's son came home. Doubtful that other families would want a widower half-mourning her son and full-mourning her family. Too much bad luck.

Her and Dog was too weird to consider.

Kani trotted into the room - trotted - and looked around airily.

"Well. This should be thrilling."

"...that's your word for it?"

"I had a thought."

"...oh?"

"I think we should travel together. For a little while, at least."

"...uh."

This was everything she feared and wanted and hoped for and dreaded. Argh.

"I mean, possibly. Conceivably. I think it could be interesting. Perhaps not over the mountains, but my people carry some sway among the other clans... you'll need a guide in our country once the spring thaw comes. So... in the valley, if there are more of my people... what I thought was that the two of us could go between them. The distance won't be too great, I'll be well-suited for introductions... and we'll see how things go. When the spring thaw comes, and all goes well during the time in the valley, I'll see if I can help you go to other groups. I assume you want to be thorough with your ethnography?"

Her eyes were bright, she kept running her hands through her wiry hair, and she seemed barely able to stay on two feet, compelled to hop, skip, jump, do other excitable things. Had the ancestor done all that? The ancestor hadn't even spoken to her, maybe glanced, but...

"Is there a reason for this?"

"Perhaps I'm thinking that becoming an ancestor is a kind of death, once every one of your descendants has moved on, changed, become ancestors themselves... immortality wears thin, you lose all your ties, all your purpose... and if I have an immortality before me of sitting around on my thumbs doing nothing of importance, I fully intend to make use of the time I have."

Carza felt the urge to play devil's advocate.

"You could do things when you're immortal."

"And you won't, becuase you're not immortal. You'll be dead. Or old. So. That's that, then. We're agreed? A test of this whole... procedure in the valley, just to see how things go."

Carza grinned.

"I'm interested. Definitely. Completely."

"Splendid."

She brushed her dress down.

"...now, father and Dog are slaughtering sheep. Let's go and wrap up a Horn of the Ancestors, I need something to relax me before this ride or I'll be shivering the whole way."

"I'm interested in partaking in that, uh, particular Horn."

"Well, bully for you. Let's go and strain all our senses with some slightly nicer herbs, eh?"

The last thing Carza had expected after meeting an ancestor was this. She could safely say that of all the things she didn't consider realistic aftermaths... feeling good was without a doubt one of them.

It was just unbelievable. Unrealistic. Inconceivable. And yet here she was. Feeling... fairly good about things.

She had a new research partner.