As Sara predicted, we spent more than a day up on that shelf, recovering. It seemed that Bregg assumed that Aeld would wake up during the night and heal us all, so we’d be ready to go early in the morning. As it turned out, the shaman woke an hour or so before sunrise, and when he did, he quickly put a damper on the hunter’s plans.
“I can’t heal us yet, Bregg,” the letharvis said apologetically. “I had to call on my healing spirit extensively the last few days, and it needs more time to recover, I’m afraid. I’ve taken all it’s willing to give me.”
“You were healing yourself?” I guessed. “That was smart.”
“I was healing all of us, Freyd,” he corrected. “We’d have all been exhausted days ago otherwise. I healed torn muscles, small cuts and bruises, and swollen joints that might have crippled us…” He gazed at Bregg. “Considering the pace we kept, at least—and the route we took.”
The hunter actually looked ashamed for a moment before recovering himself. “It’s good that we moved so quickly, Letharvis. Two more storms came through while you slept. They stayed north of us, but both looked fierce. If I hadn’t set that pace, we might have been snowed in.”
“Maybe,” the shaman said, obviously unconvinced. I wondered for a moment just how that silent communication of theirs worked. They said that they could sense one another’s emotions; could Aeld tell that Bregg had taken us this way hoping to make him turn back? Had he known the whole time but kept going out of stubbornness? It seemed that Bregg couldn’t lie to the shaman, but it was obvious that he could conceal things—or at least, he thought he could. Knowing just how accurate their communication was at detecting lies could be very useful, after all, since it would tell me how much I could trust what they said about one another.
“Can’t you just use your staff?” I asked curiously, pointing to the glowing object laying on the ground beside him. That still blazed with power; surely, he could get enough energy from it to help the spirit heal us.
“Not when my spirit’s so drained, no, Freyd.” He lifted the staff and held it horizontally before him. “Consider this your first of many lessons. Much of what I do is simply guiding my spirits to act and empowering them with my own energy, energy that I can then reclaim from the valskab to restore myself. My reserves are low, though, and trying to guide the valskab’s power directly into my spirit—it would be like trying to fill a waterskin in one of the flash floods we saw. The skin would fill, but not very well, and it would probably be damaged in the process.”
He laid the staff back down. “I’m tapping the valskab to restore myself, but that’s a slow process, especially since I’m sharing some of that with my spirits to help them recover. At this rate, it’ll be a day at least before I’m able to do any healing—or really use my spirits in any way, I’m afraid. If something is absolutely necessary, then I’ll do what I can, but otherwise, I need to rest and commune to restore myself.”
Bregg wasn’t happy, but he couldn’t really argue with the shaman. That left us spending another day and night on the shelf. Aeld spent that time in communion—which kind of looked like sleeping to me. He lay on his back, his eyes closed, breathing slowly and regularly. Only the occasional twitch of an eye beneath his eyelids or shifting of his body showed me that he wasn’t asleep, just half-conscious. Bregg, on the other hand, decided to use the time to head back into the mountains to hunt. At first, I wondered if he was just saying that so he could spy on me, but my ability to sense his spirit showed me that he had, in fact, left the mountain we rested on and gone deeper into the peaks.
That left me alone, which gave me a chance to actually look over the materials I’d taken from the kateen and ojain back on the beach weeks ago. Part of me wanted to look over the book I’d gotten from the ojain’s cabin, as I was pretty sure that it was a spellcasting guide or manual of some sort. However, I had Kadonsel for that, and besides, if I got caught reading that book by either Aeld or Bregg, I’d be in trouble. Instead, I pulled out the first book I’d taken from the kateen’s office and began flipping through it, not really looking at the pages but letting Sara absorb them. I did the same for the second book, which took less than an hour to complete.
“Okay, Sara, what did we get?” I asked hopefully.
“Well, probably not what you wanted, John,” the AI sighed. “Nothing in there said, ‘This is our master plan,’ I’m afraid.”
“I wasn’t exactly expecting that,” I chuckled. “It would have been nice, though.”
“It would have, yes.” She appeared before me again, seated on the ground facing me. “The first book is the kateen’s personal journal. It starts years ago, and while it talks about a lot of places, people, and concepts that are interesting and that you’ll probably find useful eventually, only the last few pages cover recent enough time to be relevant.
“The kateen—he obviously didn’t name himself in his journals—received a summons from someone he named the ‘Herimal’, which translates roughly to ‘master of all ships,’ to report to a city named Kemjarvi. I matched it to the map you saw; it seems to be a fairly large city on the southernmost tip of a part of the continent labeled ‘Almella.’ He reported there about four months ago.
“There, he and a dozen other kateens were told that they had a mission that would forever end the war between the Menskallin and Oikitihikiim. The kateen expressed his hope that this was true; from how he talked, the war isn’t very popular among his people, and he’s lost friends to it. He seemed willing to do just about anything to end the hostilities, and he talked quite a bit about the hope of peace, when he could sail the ocean without worrying about the Menskallin sending storms or beasts after his ship.”
I glanced at Aeld speculatively; part of me couldn’t imagine the young shaman sending a beast or spirit to sink an entire ship, but then, I had seen how thoroughly the Menskies slaughtered their enemies on that beach. There was a lot of anger and hatred there. All things considered, I actually could see it; he’d probably consider it a good thing to use a spirit and save the lives of his hunters. Of course, at the same time, I was just hearing one man’s story. I didn’t know his biases, or how much propaganda he’d been fed. Those might have been natural storms or attacks that got blamed on the Menskies.
“That’s very possible, John. He regularly refers to the Menskallin as ‘beasts’ and ‘savages’, the same way Kadonsel does. He seems fairly prejudiced against them.”
“And they seem to feel the same way about his people. So, what happened next?”
“He and all the other captains were given a completely new crew. I guess the Herimal was worried about Menskallin sympathizers passing messages or sabotaging the mission. That was why everyone on that beach was a soldier, by the way. He spent a few weeks sailing with the new crew, teaching them how to run the ship, then set sail to Pitatali. That was where he picked up Sointa and the barrels of silver. He set sail for the Northern Ocean, heading wide around that endless storm Sointa mentioned and making for the beach where we found him.”
“Does it say what he was doing with that silver?”
“No, he wasn’t told exactly what it was. He was given a map of where to pour it and told that his new crew had been trained to do it correctly. He did mention that he was ordered to keep the ojain away from the barrels, and that they could only be poured in darkness, underneath the star Flikkur.”
“So, someone on the crew really knew what was going on,” I sighed, then frowned. “Or maybe not. It feels like this Herimal, whoever they are, was compartmentalizing information pretty well, telling people only the bare minimum they needed to know. The crew might have been trained what to do but not why or what purpose it served.”
“That seems likely, John.”
“Did he mention any other ships in the area?”
“He did, in fact. He said there were other ships up there for reciprocity, but he and those kateens were ordered to stay out of sight of one another as much as possible. He speculated that that way, if the Menskallin found one ship and destroyed it, the others might still escape and continue their work. He did know that other ships used the beach as a camp when his was out sailing, though.”
“Did he say how far that line he made extended?”
“His second book was a record of his mission; I believe he meant to turn it in to the Herimal when he returned to port. According to that, he was given a distance of about a hundred miles of shoreline to pour the silver along, and he’d finished about half that. He assumed that the other ships were doing something similar in different locations.”
“Anything else interesting in those books?”
“The second book, like I said, was mostly a record of his completion of the mission. It read like a log: exact dates and times that they’d reached specific coordinates, the distance they sailed during that time, how many barrels of the silver they went through, and any mishaps or mistakes—I guess there were a few of those, where a sudden current caught the silver, or a barrel went overboard, or someone started pouring at the wrong time. He even recorded fights and disagreements between his new crew and the actions he’d taken to discipline them.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Sounds like CYA, to me.”
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“CYA?”
“Yeah. Cover Your Ass. He anticipated things going wrong or the mission failing, and he wanted to make sure he couldn’t be blamed for it.”
“That tracks with his journals,” she laughed as well. “He was very careful with what he said and never actually complained about the mission or his superiors, but he did express his concerns that the job was overly complex, and there were a lot of ways for things to go wrong.”
“Wait, he didn’t complain in his own private journal? That tells us a few things right there.”
“Like what?” Sara asked curiously.
“It tells us that he worried that someone would read them. Either he suspected that he had a spy on his ship—and who wouldn’t, considering that they made him take on a whole, new crew—or that he’s used to the idea that his private documents could be read. Either way, sounds like there are some trust issues in Oikie-land.” I snorted. “Of course, the Menskies have made it so they can read each other’s minds to know they can trust them, so maybe trust just isn’t much of a concept on this world.”
“That could be a natural result of a war that’s lasted for generations, John.”
“It could be. The point is that I’m going to have to be careful everywhere I go and assume that no one’s trusting me. This world’s probably going to be a lonely one, Sara.”
“Well, I trust you, John,” she said brightly. “And you can always trust me.”
“There’s that, at least. No matter how bad things get, we’ve always got each other.” I hesitated. “And speaking of trust, I’d really rather not get caught with anything Oikithikiim if I can help it, Sara. Or anything suspicious, really. Is there any value to holding onto these books? Anything that someone in authority here could get out of them if they can read them?”
“Not really, John. As I said, the kateen didn’t know much, I’m afraid.”
“That’s what I thought.” I quickly emptied out my storage, slipping my card decks from Puraschim—which I no longer needed and were just taking up space for no reason—and the two books into the bag of coins I’d taken from the ship. I tied it closed as best I could, looked around to make sure no one was nearby to see what I was doing, then tossed the whole thing into the raging rapids below me. The bag sailed into the whitewater and vanished without even a splash, the heavy coins pulling it to the bottom where hopefully, none of it would be found for a long time; long enough, at least, for us to leave.
I felt a twinge as I did, but the fact was that there was no point in carrying something potentially incriminating if it couldn’t help me. I had no idea what sort of abilities the letharvisa and ojaini had, but I couldn’t discount the possibility that they might be able to somehow cancel my storage ability or cut me off from it. Their circles held out spirits and magic; one of them might be able to stop me from accessing my storage function. Even worse, they might be able to do it in a way that emptied my storage, and I didn’t want to have to explain something like that.
I quickly sat back down and turned my focus inward. “Okay, Kadonsel, now that we’ve got spirit calling down, what should we work on next?” I asked the ojain.
The spirit hesitated for a moment. “Normally, the next thing an ojain learns is spirit binding,” she said. “How to guide a spirit into an appropriate vessel so its power can be used. I don’t think that’s possible, though. You don’t have any spirit orbs.”
“Besides, I already know how to meld spirits,” I pointed out. “I’m not sure how putting them in an orb would be useful.”
“You’re wrong. Using spirit orbs isn’t as dangerous as your Anduruk seems to be. It’s a fair bargain; if the spirit agrees, it enters the orb and gifts some of its energy. If it doesn’t, it leaves, and that’s that. I saw your battle with the ancient hunter, and there’s no conflict like that involved in Henguki. Plus, spirits in an orb don’t affect you or your thoughts the way the hunter was. There are lots of reasons why it would be useful.”
“She has a point, John,” Sara agreed. “There might also be an upper limit to how much spirit energy you can meld into yourself safely. That probably isn’t the case with these orbs.” She laughed lightly. “Not that it matters if you don’t have any, though.”
“Could you teach me to make them?” I asked Kadonsel curiously.
“Possibly. Not in a single sitting, though—or even a day. You’ll need to learn how to find an appropriate crystal, how to mold it into the proper shape, and how to prepare it to entice a spirit…” She scoffed silently. “And I’m not even sure if I remember all of it well enough to teach you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Preparing orbs is the work of apprentices. It’s part of their training. They make them, and we full ojaini prepare and use them. I haven’t had to make a crystal from scratch in years.”
“Well, it’s something we can work on as we travel,” I decided. “If you remember, great. If not, no harm done. In the meantime, what would an ojain apprentice learn after that?”
“It depends on the apprentice,” she sighed. “However, you seem like you’d walk the path of a sotavel, to me.”
“That translates out to ‘master of spirits in battle,’” Sara explained.
“Yeah, that does sound like me,” I chuckled. “So, what would a—one of those learn?”
“How to create and empower weapons and armor, primarily. I’m not a sotavel—I’m a huolvel, and my main focus was on empowering and maintaining large creations like ships, furnaces, mills, and the like. However, I’m not sure how much of their crafts you could manage without a spirit orb and an appropriate spirit within it.”
“I could call and meld an appropriate spirit, couldn’t I?” I pressed.
“Y-yes, I suppose,” she stammered, clearly still unhappy and nervous about that ability.
“So, what sort of spirits would be appropriate?”
She remained quiet for a moment, then sighed. “I don’t like this,” she admitted. “What you did to the ancient hunter—it seems wrong to me. To take from the spirits instead of bargaining in good faith goes against everything I’ve been taught.”
“I get that, Kadonsel. I really do. But I don’t have an option to do things another way. If I had spirit orbs, I’d happily use those instead. I don’t, though, and this is the best way to keep myself safe while using a spirit’s power.”
“I know. I just don’t like it.” She stopped for a moment, and I waited patiently for her. She’d either help me, or she wouldn’t. I could threaten her, of course, but I honestly needed her help in understanding Oikie culture and customs more than I needed her magical instruction. Between Aeld and Sara, I was pretty sure I could work all that out myself.
“Fine,” she said after a few moments. “It’s not like I can stop you, anyway.” She took a deep breath before continuing.
“As I said, I’m not a sovatel, but I know several of them. All ojaini work with many types of spirits, but every sovateli I know keeps three types of spirit orbs on them at all times: fire, earth, and lightning. They can use these to strike at their enemies directly or to shield themselves from harm. I’d recommend one of those types: earth if you want to protect yourself, fire or lightning if you want to attack others.”
“Fire is simple to call, John,” Sara broke in. “And you’ve already called earth spirits—and you’ve still got the ones from before Dominated, so melding one or two would be easy.”
“What about lightning?” I asked.
“You’d have to use an Unfocused Calling for that. I can’t guarantee that it’ll work, either.”
“Well, if it doesn’t, we can always try for fire and earth later, right? Those should be easy enough.”
“Probably, yes.”
I closed my eyes and began to envision what I thought was my understanding of lightning. I saw the bright bolts darting from murky clouds, heard the thunder rumbling and felt it pushing against me. I smelled the ozone and imagined the flashes illuminating the clouds. With the image firmly in mind, I sent out a trickle of power, hurling my call in a beam that radiated into the sky.
“You might want to try sending it back toward the mountains, John,” Sara suggested. “With all the storms that we went through, you’re probably more likely to find lightning spirits there than out over that plain.”
I shifted the focus of my call, sending it back into the sky over the mountains. I activated Draining Aura, funneling the flow of power I absorbed into the trickle of energy filling the call and carrying it into the spiritual field I’d sensed earlier. I activated See Spirits and watched as the power, tuned by the image in my head, rippled and shook the fabric of that field. The vibrations seemed a lot more complicated than the ones for wind and stone had been, but I wasn’t sure if that was because lightning spirits vibrated in a more complex manner—or if I was just getting it all wrong.
As the seconds passed, I felt more and more certain that the latter was true. I honed my image, trying to picture electricity more accurately. I imagined the feel of static making the hair on my arms or the back of my neck rise. I remembered the feel of the juice from a car battery coursing through my body—don’t ask—and the taste of a nine-volt battery on my tongue from when I tested one. I pictured a lightning storm as completely as I could, pushing that image out into the world as my call. The seconds spread out into minutes, and I sighed internally. I’d failed, it seemed—either that, or there just wasn’t a spirit nearby that was able or willing to come find me. I supposed that was possible, too. Maybe if I shifted the direction of the call, tried to reach out over the plains…
I froze as the rumble of distant thunder rippled through the air. Far above the mountains, a hazy white cloud appeared in my spiritual vision, one streaked with pale blue and sea green bands. A bright blue glow whirled and spun in the center of that cloud, leaping about almost eagerly as it followed my call. I sighed with relief; I’d managed to summon a lightning spirit after all! I opened my eyes and looked back, over my shoulder, then swore softly as I leaped to my feet.
A patch of darkness moved swiftly through the sky, heading in our direction, an inky blackness that blotted out the stars. A flash of illumination lit it up from within, revealing a dark gray cloud and sending a rumble of thunder rolling over me. A gust of wind whipped past me, ruffling my fur and carrying with it the heavy scents of rain and ice.
I quickly cut off my call, but the cloud kept racing toward us. Another flash of lightning lit it up from within, and the noise of it lashed out like a whip cracking in the sky. The wind picked up, now pushing slightly against me and pelting me with tiny bits of gravel. I ran over to Aeld, intending to wake him up, but before I could reach him, a curtain of water dropped from the sky, slamming against the mountain and rushing toward us with a loud roar. I braced myself as it slammed into me with another crack of lightning. The downpour soaked my fur almost instantly, chilling my skin and battering against my face and shoulders, and I flinched away from it involuntarily.
“John, look out!” Sara practically shouted, and I quickly rolled sideways, not even sure what I was reacting to. As I did, a dark shape whipped through the air where I’d just been with a blast of wind that rolled me even further. A crackle of electricity filled the air, making my sodden fur tingle and bringing the smell of ozone. I kicked up to my feet and looked back at the shape that had apparently attacked me from the center of the storm.
A winged figure, looking like a hawk but oddly shaped somehow, soared past me, its wings locked as a gust of wind carried it up into the storm raging above me. I had to squint against the rain to watch it as it rose high in the sky, vanishing into the dark cloud above. A flash of lightning ripped through the cloud, lighting up the outline of the raptor-like shape, and a sharp crack of thunder pounded at my ears, making me wince at the pain in my skull. I blinked as the brightness washed out my vision for a second, then refocused just in time to see the raptor explode from the clouds and dive directly toward me, its beak gaping…
And all four of its taloned feet stretched out to tear my flesh.