Twelve Stars 2

A sheen of rippling color, a faint distortion against the dry sandy cliffside above and the clouds overhead, and even that he only caught in the slight dissonance that lay between the sight of his beast eyes and his human ones. His saber was in his hand before the final word had finished being spoken.

“And who is it who gives me this compliment? I should like to thank you for it,” Okatai said, tracking the edge of the distortion. His beast eyes saw it better, though without the differing colors of his other eyes that would not be enough.

“Funny. But a westerner wandering lost in these peaks must have some humor.”

Color peeled away like watered paint, and revealed a man in loose and airy white robes that shimmered under the sun, their edges blurring under his gaze still. The wide, opaque gray crystal of his flight mask peered from beneath a wide hood of the stuff. Though Okatai noted the short curved bow of beast bone in his hand was at least not drawn.

His beast self was a strange thing, an awkward gangly lizard with a curling tail and widely splayed legs connected by flaps of leathery skin, and wide toes that clung to the vertical cliffside above. Its large wide-set eyes swiveled freely, one fixed on him while the other searched the sky. His sandy scales shimmered and blurred just the same as the man’s robes.

“But well enough, I am Erzhan, son of Sanzhar. Khan of the Ghost Arrow. Who is it who so rudely seeks our water?”

“The things of the earth and ground belong to no man or people,” Okatai said carefully. A tribe was named for the epithet of its Khan’s most storied ancestor, and given how easily he had been taken by surprise, he did not doubt the honesty of this one. “I am only a single traveler on pilgrimage. I seek to take no more than three skins full and for myself alone.”

“Pretty words, easily spoken in the lush west,” Erzhan scoffed. “Things are not so easy here, where the pools boil away a scarce few days after the rain. I know little of the west, save that the lowlanders have been stirred to wrath again. I know this because I have turned away the scouts of many tribes seeking to save themselves and push us from our places.”

“Have you grounded yourself then, like a lowland king?” Okatai said, drawing himself up despite the danger, could not help himself. 

“Hardly, Those with wisdom I tell fly south where the marsh kin wander, but those who think to take may join the pyre flames that keep the Dead at bay,” Erzhan said. “We do not want your trouble westerner.”

“Our trouble will come to you if we fall,” Oktai replied. The tribes of the east were some of the most stubborn against Great Khan Galidan’s call, even more than the tribes of the holy peaks and the deep wall, who at least sent recognition of what he had become.

“I hear only the wind whispering in the sand. The Grave spews its wasting sickness, the curse of the Dead Worm, the rain that steals water rather than gives it, without mercy. I will worry about the things which may kill us in a hundred years in a hundred years,” Erzhan scoffed.

There was no good in arguing that. Not when he did not even know what sickness the man spoke of. “Erzhan, I am Oktai, son of Mete, Khan of Dawnfire, and I swear you this, by Father Sky and our Mother Star, my tribe makes camp in Great Khan Galidan’s court and does not seek yours. I am alone and intend to lead no others here. If this is untrue, let the wind curse my wings forever.”

The man considered him dourly, his beast self's wandering eyes both fixing on Oktai. It was no trivial oath he had given, men had been smote by the gods for swearing false to less. “What then, is your purpose here?”

“Pilgrimage. I hear the starsong of Ruin, and she guides me to seek her Brother, the Liberation Star, who lies in these mountains. I was unaware how… stringent the eastern tribes regard simple forage.”

Erzhan regarded him silently for a long moment. Okatai looked back up at him without shame, his beast self’s wings half spread ready to take flight if he was attacked anyway. Finally, the lizard's tail struck the rock with a crack, scattering pebbles and splitting the stone. “I will not deny an oath like that. Fine. I will show you to my Father, where you may give your thanks as a guest and perhaps receive some water.”

He grimaced behind his own mask, the song in his mind was yearning and insistent. “I wish to pass through swiftly, my pilgrimage is not a leisurely one.”

“We wish you pass quickly the same westerner. My Father knows the tale of the Liberation Star. His words will speed your trip, and save us what you might drink in your wandering.”

He was not wholly certain of that but… he could not say any more without being far too insulting. He gave a jerky nod and wheeled, leaving the cavern mouth that held the spring. Erzhan returned the gesture, swaying in his saddle, and his mount leaped from the cliff, spiraling up into the air on the lizard's kite-like wings. Okatai followed, leaving the rough earth behind.

“What is the curse of the Dead Worm? I do not know this tale,” He asked, as they entered a soar, his voice carried despite the distance.

“Fortunate for you, You know the worms that claim kingship of the clouds and the rain?”

“The beast plagues us with its lowland master even now,” Oktai growled. The sight of golden scales in the sky was the terror of children across the wall.

“Once such a beast ruled in the east, now it is dead and thinks it still does,” Erzhan said simply. “When the sun fell to earth to put the lowlander's folly to rest, it was no different than the others. It rose later to plague us again. The living worms at least obey the order of seasons, the Dead Worm brings only the black bile, a rain that is not water, but will turn an unprepared warrior into a bundle of dry bones and leather in seconds, if caught out in it. It sears the land dry wherever it passes. It has passed often of late.”

Oktai held back the urge to comment on the ruin the living one brought so freely to the west, but thought better of it. Still, it disturbed him to see how possessive such desperation made even his kin of things that belonged to no one. Defending ones watering hole from another tribe seeking to take their whole herd through but to be so harsh as to accost even a single traveler…

“It is true then, that the Khan Galidan has awakened and bonded to the Star of Ruin?” Erzhan asked roughly.

“He has, and others have begun to do the same, among both the great stars and the less children awakened by her song,” Oktai said.

One of the lizard’s eyes swiveled to him, and he could tell it was scrutinizing the stone on his brow. It surely lent weight to his words, even if even this far to the east, they would have felt something when the star had drawn her blade.

He shook his head. “Shaman business.”

“Our ancestors…”

“Are shaman business, at least when their unsent bones are not riding against us on a fell plague wind,” Erzhan said firmly. “The Stars have been gone for very long. I do not deal in stories and songs, for all they are needed ‘round the fires at night to keep the wraiths at bay.”

“So yes. Shaman business.”

He had heard many reactions around their camps, awe and disbelief and sullen envy from those who arrived at Galidan’s court, but never had he quite thought he would see such… aggressive disinterest. Even those who had submitted to the Ice Witches had not been able to hide their wonder when he had witnessed in some among them hearing this news.

“Then I will leave it at that,” Okatai said uncomfortably, not knowing where to go from there.

Erzhan grunted, reaching out, pointing at the gap between two curved peaks of glassy rock, whose tips were so bent that they nearly came together. “Stay close to me as we pass under these. There is a whorl, which can reach our camp here, which I know the way of opening. If you are too far, Father Sky’s current will toss you out who knows where.”

Okatai took in a sharp breath. He had heard of such things, though his tribe had no shaman who could create the songs needed to navigate them. “Then I will be in your care.”

The wind shimmered in the gap between peaks, rippling like the surface of a pond as Erzhan inhaled deeply, and began to sing.