He changed directions often, even though he knew it would do no good if Urhkarasiférin still followed. What concerned Brot’ân’duivé more was that the other greimasg’äh might have turned back.
Patchy, lime-colored moss cushioned their footfalls until Brot’ân’duivé finally stopped. He crouched beneath the bright leaves of a squat maple, and Osha dropped beside him.
“We are followed,” he whispered. “I can no longer come with you, and we must act quickly now.”
Osha had been through much in the past moons. The sudden statement that he was being abandoned made him rock backward on his haunches. He braced himself to keep from toppling.
“Greimasg’äh,” he whispered. “Only caste elders know the full way to the Chein’âs.”
Young initiates were blindfolded for part of their journey. Even those given assent by their jeóin did not learn those last steps until many years—if ever—into their life of service.
If Urhkarasiférin was here, then Most Aged Father had sent him. There was no telling what else the mad patriarch had done. And the journal had been left with Cuirin’nên’a ... in Gleannéohkân’thva’s home.
Brot’ân’duivé would have to violate a sacred oath, and he grabbed Osha by the front of his vestment.
“Listen,” he hissed. “You will travel like the wind to the coastline, to where the Branch Mountains, what the humans call the Crown Range, meet the eastern coast at the farthest corner of our territory. There you must find an elder in a coastal enclave and beg a ship to carry you south. Within three days, you will reach a large, empty shore of nothing but gray-tinged sand and seaweed. You will see the granite point of the tallest mountain from the dead center of this beach. Have the ship’s crew drop you there, even if you have to swim.”
“Greimasg’äh!” Osha whispered loudly. “Do not break the covenant!”
“Quiet!” he ordered. “From that beach, travel inland until you reach the base of the foothills. Head onward, looking for the shortest one, like a mountain with its top broken off. As you draw closer, it will be easier for you to see its sheared and ragged top—and the mouth of an old volcanic vent at its crest. Keep your awareness of direction, and in the line between the beach left behind and the broken peak, search along the mountain’s base until you find a stone chute. Follow that to the entrance.”
Osha closed his eyes. “You should not tell me these things.”
“The chute leads to a tunnel,” Brot’ân’duivé went on. “And the tunnel leads to the cavern. From there you will know what to do. When you reach the portal of the Burning Ones’ white metal—”
“No, Greimasg’äh!”
Brot’ân’duivé shook Osha until the young one opened his eyes.
“Touch one of your blades to the portal ... and it will open.”
It was done. Brot’ân’duivé had broken one of the oldest oaths of his caste. In trusting this most inept of all anmaglâhk, he endangered a centuries-old covenant of protection for the last of an ancient race.
Osha shook his head.
“Sgäilsheilleache would have died first,” he whispered. “He did die before breaking any oath. What have you done?”
Instead of empathy or even respect for the young one’s sense of honor, Brot’ân’duivé felt only disdain.
“Sgäilsheilleache was blind,” he said quietly as he rose to full height. “Ignorance to the actions of Most Aged Father is what has ruptured our caste from within ... and my death will not help any of our people. Now get up!”
There was one more thing to be done, for Osha would not reach the coast quickly enough on his own. Brot’ân’duivé looked all around and then walked toward a patch of brighter light in a break among the trees.
“What are you doing?” Osha asked.
“Be silent and follow. Do not speak again until instructed to do so.”
They were far enough from any eyes that should not see what would come next ... what Osha should not see. Brot’ân’duivé reached the edge of the clearing, stopped, and motioned for Osha to halt.
“Stay,” Brot’ân’duivé said, and he stepped out into the clearing.
Closing his eyes, Brot’ân’duivé emptied his consciousness once again, as he would to let shadow take him whole. Here in the light there were no shadows. Amid his emptied mind, he called up one image and held it until it was perfect in his silenced thoughts.
He hoped it would hear him ... hear that pure apparition of its presence held with the shadow that stood amid the light. He lost all awareness, even of the moments that slipped by.
Until a heavy footfall made him open his eyes.
Beyond the clearing’s far side and out among the trees, two branches in a cluster of cedars suddenly moved. They appeared to separate from the others and drift between the trees into view. Below them came a long equine head with two crystalline blue eyes larger than those of a majay-hì. Those eyes fixed on him as the creature’s tall ears independently turned his way.
A deer would have been dainty next to this massive beast, for it was as large as an elk or a tall horse. Silver gray in hue, its coat was long and shaggy, more so around its shoulders and across its broad chest. What had at first appeared to be branches were two curved horns—smooth, without prongs— sprouting high from its head.
Brot’ân’duivé heard Osha’s astonished whisper from behind. “Clhuassas!”
“My thanks,” he murmured, for it had heard his call.
He was about to force Osha to do something else unconscionable.
Clhuassas—the listeners—were among the forest’s oldest sacred ones, like the majay-hì. Desperation pushed Brot’ân’duivé to something others considered a sacrilege. But they did not understand that this was a secret of the Greimasg’äh. Only they could make a sound deep within shadow, within the emptiness of self, that could beg for such help.
Urhkarasiférin’s presence was nowhere nearby as far as Brot’ân’duivé could sense. He needed to leave, and for that Osha must be taken quickly away. Then he heard Osha backstep heavily.
At the crackle of leaves underfoot, the great creature stalled.
Brot’ân’duivé could not risk admonishing Osha again.
The silver-gray clhuassas slowly walked into the clearing. Its coat glowed like threads of silver under sunlight, and its eyes seemed too bright. When it came near enough that Brot’ân’duivé felt its snorting breath upon his face, it lowered its massive head to look him in the eyes.
Brot’ân’duivé put his forehead against the bridge of the sacred one’s nose. He let go of its image, and in the shadowed emptiness of his mind, he envisioned Osha and the coastal destination the young one had to reach.
The beast snorted and stamped its massive hoof once, but it did not buck its head to strike him down. Brot’ân’duivé felt its hot, moist breath as it exhaled on his chin and throat. When he opened his eyes, he was face-to-face—eye to eye—with the listener.
“Osha,” he whispered, “come ... now.”
It was more than three breaths before he heard the young one’s steps. Osha rounded wide to the left, his expression beyond tense.
“What are you doing?” he whispered.
“Climb onto its back,” Brot’ân’duivé ordered.
“No! I will not ride a sacred one like a beast of burden!”
Brot’ân’duivé had hardly believed that an anmaglâhk of Osha’s limited status would defy him, but he kept his patience.
“It has been too long since I received the stone!” he almost snapped. “This one will carry you more swiftly than you can run. It has agreed to this.... Now get on.”