In my slumber, I hear the rustling wind and the lapping waves of the Lizard. I feel a chill creeping in from the river.

I’m on the verge of waking, but the smoke from the Penetration Grass envelops me again, mixing Kasamarchi’s past with my own. All these memories are transformed into bright fragments flapping in the wind and twisting together, confusing my hazy mind.

The brightest fragments are the closest. I’m a boy of seven, making my way stubbornly into the mountains. I’m alone here, and I must focus. No Father behind my back, no Mother by my side. I only have the skills and knowledge they gave me to help me on this journey, and their love warming my heart.

The next line of memories has calmer colors. I’m a scared girl transported to a hostile alien world by an unknown power.

More strips flapping behind those—faded, as though washed out. My apartment. My made-up bed. The thundering crash. The demon’s roar.

Even farther away, I no longer see strips, but their swaying, colorless ghosts. My birthday. The cake. Mom. The blurry images of the guests’ faces.

My past self, laughing as she blows out the candles, making her wish.

And…hey, who is that?

That pale silhouette behind the faded ghost strips. Apparently human, but very small.

A child?

A hunched old man?

I’m squinting to make out more, but the smoke thickens, covering me with the blanket of non-existence. It drags me back into the dream where something important for Kasamarchi is happening.

For Kasamarchi? Or for me?

Why “or”?

In this dream, I am Kasamarchi.

***

I shook the weird daydream off, my hand swinging the sling in circles, as I aimed at the fast-moving, carrion-eating Handwalker.

Stop, you brute!

Sure, I could fling a stone to the spot it was about to move to, but I could easily miss. This bony creature changed its direction too often. My hand was trained for stones of a particular weight, and I only had a few of those in my bag. I’d collected them when entering the Handwalker Hollow.

It was the fifth day of my journey. I was halfway towards the Peak of Spirits.

My second day in the area no adult ever entered.

Creeping along behind my back was the Lazy River, separating Crealia from Snake Eye Canyon—my destination that lay three or four days ahead.

On their Passage, every child from all of Crealia had to cross the Lazy River: a slow current of thick crimson liquid with dark-brown, almost black hummocks, only as large as two or three palms.

A long time ago, the Magister tried to combat the Aspers by preventing their children from completing their rite of Passage. So he put a guard at the entrance to Snake Eye Canyon, blocking the only way to the Peak of Spirits.

But to stand there, the soldiers had to cross the Lazy River, which flowed—or rather crept—from the Icy Rocks in the north. It carried its caustic mud across all of Crealia, in a great arc around the Highlands, before vanishing into the Fiery Caves in the south.

The only way to cross the Lazy River was by stepping on the small hillocks creeping downstream, carried by the current. But they could only support the weight of a child or small animal. An adult would slip off the hillock, or drown with it in the caustic stream. This liquid ate through any wood, metal, or human flesh in a matter of minutes, melting them like the April sun melts snow, not even leaving the bones for burial.

In a year, the Magister lost two dozen soldiers and several wagons of wood and steel in his futile attempts to transport the guards across the Lazy River. None of his men ever made it to the other bank, regardless of how they attempted to cross: on foot, jumping on the hillocks, by raft, or by a floating bridge.

After that, someone suggested putting the soldiers along this bank to intercept the young Aspers once they ducked out from behind the rocks to start their way across the Lazy River. Those who made it through the line could simply be shot as they jumped on the hillocks. Even being grazed by a stone would knock the jumper off balance and into the caustic river that would eat their body.

But as the Council crunched the numbers, they realized it would take half of the Creali Guard to control the whole length of the Lazy River. No one could afford to pull that many soldiers from their regular duties in other parts of the country.

The Council’s next idea was to send armed boys to the other bank to stand watch at the Canyon’s entrance and prevent the little Aspers from entering. But the guards, many of whom had completed their own Passage as children, knew too well that even one child with an animated object could easily destroy a small group of adult soldiers, let alone armed boys. No one wanted to send their sons to die by animated clasps and keys, so the Magister had to abandon his plan of stopping the Passage. Instead, he focused on destroying the Aspers residing on this side of the Lazy River.

***

I’ve already gotten used to being silent and alone.

Counting the days was easy. Each morning, I ate one of the bearnuts that I carried in my bag. One nut was so filling it spared me from hunger for the entire day.

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Sometimes I would hunt a small animal, a hare or a partridge, to roast over the campfire for dinner. But usually, I’d only have my morning nut and some roots.

Now I had twenty-eight nuts, including a reserve for a possible three-day delay.

With many mountain streams along my way, I did not suffer from thirst. No large animals so far, only the small ones, which I did not fear. Father had taught me to move silently, avoiding open areas and staying downwind whenever possible.

You don’t want your smell to fly ahead of you, screaming “easy prey here” to every jackal in the Highlands.

Sometimes I stayed in hiding places for a long time, waiting for dusk or the wind to change. Every morning, just as Mother taught me, I rubbed my body with fragrant grass, so that its fragrance would linger on my skin and disguise my own scent when the wind would be at my back in a narrow crevice.

The whistle dangled from my neck, almost forgotten. I hadn’t yet had an opportunity to use my Weapon.

And now I had run into this hand-walking scavenger. According to Father, these creatures seldom roamed alone. But this one was, probably lured away from its pack by the smell of carrion. Handwalkers loved fresh meat, but they were too bad at hunting to enjoy it often.

This one had probably decided it could enjoy mine. Jumping over big rocks, it was coming closer, still hesitating to attack.

Swinging my sling, I waited for a better opportunity, my arm growing heavy.

Stop. Stop just for a moment, you!

I’d rather kill the handwalker as fast as possible before its relatives come here and overpower me.

As though aware that I’d smash its flat head once it stopped, the handwalker kept moving its long, thin legs, climbing a steep cliff. It looked like a giant, shaggy spider that had lost six of its limbs.

What a strange creature.

It had four limbs, actually. But it only used two forelegs for moving around. Twice as long as its body, they ended in spade-like hands that the creature stood on—that was why it was called handwalker. The hind legs had tiny feet with long toes the animal could use as hands. Its other name was gurgler because of the sound it made when attacking.

The animal was slightly taller than me, although I was unsure how exactly I should measure its height. Standing on its outstretched forelimbs, it could not reach the ground with the hind ones, which were much shorter.

Judging by the gurgling sound growing louder, I could tell it was approaching. But I still could not shoot my sling.

Then it dawned on me. The sun!

Swinging my sling and keeping my eyes on the animal, I estimated the shadows. The sun was setting behind my back.

Waiting for the handwalker to dart into the sunlit bottom of the hollow, I darted out in two giant leaps. A warm sunbeam licked the back of my head.

Just then, the handwalker landed on its knotty fingers in the middle of the sunlit strip, raising a cloud of dust. The scavenger’s sparse hair flashed with red as it looked up to find me.

For a split second, we were both out in the bright sun, but it shone behind me, dazzling the handwalker. The blinded spider-like creature stopped.

Now!

I jerked the sling faster, filling the stone with lethal weight. Turning abruptly, I shot my sling arm out, releasing my grip on the tab at the very moment when my hand, the stone, and the handwalker’s head were aligned.

Completing my final step, I saw the big stone crush the scavenger’s tiny skull like an old pot. The animal’s limbs bent, dropping its hairy body into stone dust.

That was when I heard the familiar gurgling sound from behind, produced by many throats at once. Jumping away to hide in the shade, I looked back.

From down the stone ledges, gripping with their hairy arms like monkeys and pushing off with their tiny legs, were dozens of handwalkers, coming straight at me. They were everywhere. I spun my head, frantically searching for a place to stand and cover my back, but these things were creeping down both walls.

No way to escape. I pulled out my dagger.

Jumping down, the scavengers glanced at the dusty pool of blood around their relative’s smashed skull. None of them rushed to attack, as I retreated towards the middle of the hollow.

Why am I so small? A pang of regret came to my heart.

Dad would have walked through the crowd of these ugly things, simply kicking them aside with his boots. He wouldn’t even have had to summon Wolf, his belt buckle.

The measured squeaks of stone dust beneath the creatures’ walking hands gave place to continuous rustling, as they dashed into an attack.

Wheeling around, I was blinded by the sun, just like the dead handwalker sprawled at my feet had been minutes before.

Squinting, I stretched out my dagger, reaching for my Whistle with my other hand.

It wasn’t there.

I grabbed at my chest.

No Whistle!

Then a deep humming sound filled the hollow, shaking its stone walls.

The air became as dense as water, wrapping my body so that I could not move.

With my eyes still blinded by the sun, I sensed, rather than saw, a presence by my side.

Regaining my vision a few moments later, I saw a wooden giant in a long robe of rough fabric. The wood of his body was dark and smooth, well-polished, a couple of broad wings with fashioned feathers rocking behind his back.

That’s my Whistle!

Slowly, the angel took the short, broad trumpet from his lips. The humming noise resounded through the hollow for a few more seconds, bouncing off its walls, then the pressing air started to clear. I glanced around.

The handwalkers froze right where the blare of the angel’s trumpet had caught them, motionless except for the wind stirring their facial hair. But as the sound subsided, their limbs started to twitch, their eyes blinking back to life. They were about to shake their stupor off and continue the attack…

But my Angel took the enemies in with a sweeping glance of his empty wooden eyes. In his other hand, he lifted a whip that used to be the leather string holding the small figure around my neck.

Some handwalkers were already coming to, gazing around with stunned eyes, as though waking from a deep sleep. The fastest ones rushed to attack.

Angel’s dark hand made a semi-circle in the air.

Boom!

I was deafened by a cracking sound like a lightning bolt hitting the ground at my feet, its echo resounding through the hollow.

Because of Angel’s giant height, his lash swept over the enemies not horizontally, but at an angle. I could tell by the damage it did.

The first handwalker lost half of its head. Rolling its reddened eyes, the creature collapsed flat, splattering the rock with the bloody mess from its skull.

The next scavenger was beheaded. Its heart was still pumping blood that burst from torn arteries like two red fountains, pouring hot liquid over the dust around its dead body.

The next two animals were split in half. One was severed across the chest, sinking like a deflated bubble. The other was severed across the small of its back, dumping its crimson entrails onto the sand.

Reaching the last creature, the whip swept away its pelvis and forelegs. The handwalker collapsed, waving the bloody stumps of its limbs frantically, but soon stopped moving, its glassy eyes staring at its neighbor’s dusty entrails.

In the meantime, Angel wheeled around, waving its whip again. A booming sound came from behind. Looking back, I saw another pile of bloody bodies.

As the echo died in the hollow, it became silent.

I turned to Angel, but he was no longer there, just a wooden figure on a leather string in the sand where he had just been standing.

Dusting Angel off, I put him around my neck.

So my Weapon has been initiated. I’d better not blow it for now.

Picking my sling and adjusting the wooden charm on my chest, I headed out of the Hollow, going around the dead scavengers. My heart filled with calm confidence. I will reach the Peak of Spirits. I will bring the vulture’s feather.

But I must not let my guard down. As my Dad used to say, No weapon can protect the one who is careless.