Osha rose, staring at the stone. “I made my journey to them years past to receive my weapons and tools. Why do you show me this?”
“Because they have called you back.”
“No!” Osha snapped. “They call us once, when the elders of our caste approve an initiate to seek out a jeóin. The stone is a mistake!”
“There are no such mistakes,” lashed a soft voice.
Cuirin’nên’a stood in the chamber archway; one of her hands held the curtain aside as she then stepped out.
“You are summoned,” she added. “This is the way, based on covenants with the Burning Ones, whom we protect along with the Séyilf, the Wind-Blown. This is part of our people’s ways as well. And in keeping them, this is part of what your jeóin died to uphold!”
Brot’ân’duivé clenched his jaw, for this was not the way he would have handled Osha. Years of isolation in imprisonment had hardened Cuirin’nên’a, though all she said was true. Unlike all others, she had borne a burden none of them could match.
Osha and Leanâlhâm were unaware that the other three in this chamber were part of the rumored dissidents. But in all of Cuirin’nên’a’s long years alone, not one rumor had ever been proven and not one dissident had ever been uncovered because of her. She had suffered Most Aged Father’s threats, taunts, and demands, his mental tortures without even being able to put her lost human mate to rest ... until Léshil had come for her.
Cuirin’nên’a had never broken. That Brot’ân’duivé and Gleannéohkân’thva stood here still free was proof enough of this. Many might claim they could do as well as she had. Many would be liars.
Osha fell silent under Cuirin’nên’a’s harsh words. Only then did Brot’ân’duivé give enough notice to the girl—too late.
Leanâlhâm’s grief-strained face was filled with confusion. She sucked in a breath as if to speak. Only a sob came out as she fled, ripping through the curtained archway and out of the tree home. Osha immediately turned to follow, but the old healer blocked his way with a gentle touch.
“You have a purpose,” Gleannéohkân’thva whispered. “This one must be fulfilled.”
Osha stood there, slowly sagging.
“And you will guide me?” he asked, his tone unreadable.
It was obvious to whom he spoke, and Brot’ân’duivé knew the worst was over. The fire caves of the Chein’âs were a long journey away, but Osha was Anmaglâhk, and he would obey.
“Yes,” Brot’ân’duivé said and headed for the outer doorway.
Once outside, he held the curtain back. Osha finally followed, as did Gleannéohkân’thva, but not Cuirin’nên’a. Osha turned all ways, looking about in a sudden return of anguish, but Leanâlhâm was nowhere to be seen.
Brot’ân’duivé’s old friend nodded to him. “When will you return?” the healer asked.
“I do not know.”
At that, Osha cast him a hardened glare before turning to Gleannéohkân’thva.
“I thank your enclave for its kindness and welcome,” he said with a deep nod of respect to the healer. “Tell Leanâlhâm that I ... I will see you both again.”
Osha started to turn away but then froze. At that, Brot’ân’duivé spotted Cuirin’nên’a in the doorway.
As precisely beautiful as any statuette of tawny wood fashioned by the most skilled Shaper, she was equally still and watchful. Osha began to speak, but she cut him off.
“I will watch over them,” she said. “No harm will come to them unless it first passes me.”
With closed eyes, Osha bowed more deeply, as if in gratitude, but when he turned to leave, he would not look at Brot’ân’duivé. He strode off across the village green. Like any who had once been before the Burning Ones, he knew the general direction.
With one last nod to those who remained behind, Brot’ân’duivé took off at a trot, quickly passing Osha. Within moments, they jogged out of the enclave into the wild forests of their land. Then the two of them were alone except for the tiny hummingbirds of mixed colors darting among the large blooms in the underbrush.
Brot’ân’duivé led the way deeper into the forest.
The world shifted to rich hues pulsing in the somber light filtering down through the canopy above. Osha said nothing more for the rest of that day. Brot’ân’duivé did not give this much thought, as it would have accomplished nothing. When dusk began to gather among the trees, something else crept into his awareness, and he slowed.
If the movement of an unseen shadow could be heard, this was the only way he could have described what he felt from behind them.
Now a few steps ahead, Osha slowed to look back. “What?”
Brot’ân’duivé could not answer. When he scanned the forest, he saw nothing, heard nothing, and now felt nothing. Osha looked about, waiting for an answer. Brot’ân’duivé simply turned and ran onward.
That night when they camped, he closed his eyes but did not sleep.
For three days more, they ran deeper into the land, always heading westward and a bit to the south. No matter how far they traveled, the sense of a shadow kept returning to slowly unnerve Brot’ân’duivé. In the early afternoon of the fourth day, he stopped atop the rise of a sharp slope.
“Continue,” he whispered. “I will catch up.”
With a puzzled glance backward, Osha obeyed and jogged onward.
Brot’ân’duivé waited briefly until Osha was beyond sight, and then trotted down the same slope. When the sharp rise cut off his sight of the way they had come, he darted off Osha’s chosen path and into the forest.
He sidled in next to a great maple tree and became as still in mind as in body. The shadows of the forest took him in, and with his thoughts emptied, his senses opened fully as he waited.
The sound of a soft step carried to his ears.
It was little more than what would be made by a leaf falling upon the earth. He saw nothing, though his eyes unconsciously followed that sound up to the trees to the right of the slope’s ridgetop. His senses separated every leaf, twig, blossom, and branch until ...
His awareness fixed on a shadow with no origin. Suddenly it changed and fit in.
Brot’ân’duivé remained hidden in silence and in shadow. Only another greimasg’äh could cause such an uncertainty to his awareness ... to be there and then not, in a shadow. It had moved either in body or thought and betrayed itself for an instant. Brot’ân’duivé stilled his mind and emptied his consciousness before he became the one to be sensed.
“You are here.... I know this ... as much as you know I am.”
That whisper carried among the trees. A form suddenly took shape beside a stand of aspens off to his left. Dressed all in forest gray, this anmaglâhk was broad shouldered and perhaps short for an an’Cróan.
“Urhkarasiférin,” Brot’ân’duivé whispered.
Another greimasg’äh had tracked him. This changed everything.
“Turn back,” he said. “Whatever Most Aged Father has asked of you ... your purpose ends here.”
“What of the book?” Urhkarasiférin returned. “It is all I have come for, nothing more.”
“Then you have come for nothing.”
Still Urhkarasiférin did not move. Neither of them feared the other, and both saw death only as a necessary consequence of service. All that differed was whom they each served first, the people or Most Aged Father.
“Do you have the human sage’s journal?” Urhkarasiférin asked.
It took a fateful blink before Brot’ân’duivé answered. “It belongs to me now.”
That wink of a pause was enough to fail him in his lie. Urhkarasiférin was gone without a sound.
Brot’ân’duivé stood frozen for one breath and then bolted after Osha. He did not even try to move silently, and Osha came to a halt before he caught up. Brot’ân’duivé signaled to him without stopping, and Osha whirled and vanished into the trees before Brot’ân’duivé caught up and took the lead.