Words that run around will chant themselves a voice.


    -


    A foreigner was thrown out by the people who it loved. There were shaking and screams and punching torn from it, and then running, far away. The ground yanked at its hands and ripped itself up, grabbed it, hoisted it inside, covered it with the hands of the foreigner. All decided that the foreigner would live and content itself with quiet.


    Soon its content was swept out by the tide. Shaking and a pit confronted it when it looked back into the country where its people lay, and when it looked onto the country of itself. It saw everything that it was not in its hands and body. It was a kind that could beat and nothing else. It did not know how this had been, or what was left.


    It could give nothing. It knew that there was giving, but it could not say how. To be was to have, was to become, was to move by being. There was no distance between points.


    The foreigner came up from the ground. It was taken by the woods that moved it, shifting, their parts in rivered flows of dirt and crumbling roots that waved and broke with a leery shift and changing face. The presentation of the mulch and the flow of bits that it spread into unsettled it, so it did not let them keep a single one. There was nothing left. The foreigner would be sung in the way it was made.


    Now that its like had gone, everything looked into it, and there was nothing that was like itself. And then there was. They walked around and breathed and bled. Air took them.


    Emerging from its chamber, it grabbed what it could from the wood. There were noisemakers not too far. They would make a sound when it rose up close, and it was afraid to do so. Every piece of the wood had a hand on it, but the more the noisemakers grabbed from it, the more it remembered what it had lost. These noisemakers, too, were captured by loss. It drove more shaking and more pain into it that she could not take out. This, however, called in gladness. Even snatched by an alien firmament, it and others were in company.


    There was a gap between their positions; a precious feature that it had made, and which the mulch and the bits would be hard-pressed to let it go without. If the noisemakers and their breathing kind were to come closer to it, the ones with hearts that bled in such numbers, which walked, and were confronted by shaking and by the pit, it would not be able to resist the shearing that bashed and cut apart its concern.


    A snowflake fell into wood, and it saw the foreigner. The wind blew and scattered.


    The foreigner was struck, from a distance, when the one emerged from many. It was in each part of the wood, and the one. The noisemaker filled itself with water from a hole, collected branches with no water, and ignited in them the most terrible change, which was so like the shape that had it, especially in its beginning. The sparks, which sang out from colliding stone, shifted and thickened the air with smoke.


    The whole position and all its elements made the foreigner warm, and brought to mind the times before that it had come to feel, around the hours of its day, for which no measure would offer sense. The day had not ended, and its beginning was behind a never. Always turning new and turning old. Like the noisemakers, a parcel that could know and touch, and that was all.


    The day turned new. A many departed one, and fell down in the wood, and was deprived of all movement. The foreigner watched from a distance, and moved it closer. It wondered if it could learn more. So the noisemaker pulled it in, and took in the foreigner''s heat, and extracted its song with tears and gasping. No new sight was brought by this return. But it dulled the pain of its privations.


    The noisemakers formed another piece, of many writhing parts, that it went out into the bushes by. They handed themselves to it from its bolt-hole in the mulch. The world around it cried out and protested as the one of many sped toward it. The world broke away from the foreigner and they fell on it. A limb was severed, but it did not know how big. Noises were made and they moved away. The piece offered itself, and the foreigner decided to let it in. The piece''s drew the foreigner''s eyes to its bones and flesh and fluids. After some time, it proved so interesting that a map of the piece made itself from the foreigner. It left itself in the ground, and did not seek the foreigner''s attention again.


    The day turned further. The foreigner, now, had spent a good amount of time outside its chamber. The air was growing still. Many eyes with things were closed, and all was moving into cold.


    As the foreigner, too, was about to be received by its cave, and prefer its quiet until warmth, a much smaller noisemaker approached it. The five limbs had only one center between them. It looked closer, and found more, building a noisemaker within its center.


    It did not want another noisemaker to be pushed apart. But even though the foreigner was not moved to it, the noisemaker was moved at it anyway, approaching without being received by a rattling throat, sweat and running, or water pushing itself off from eyes. It was taken by small noises instead, and a piece fell out from it, along with drops of scarlet, by a piece of metal. And the noisemaker''s limb was shorter.


    It departed then, and the foreigner was picked up by what it left behind.


    It found a shape in the noisemaker''s limb, along with where it seemed to be going. With alarm, the foreigner was found by a fine song; a renewing song. What this limb might bring out from it; a side to see from. An eye that could speak.


    A wing perched on the branches was thrust into panic and flight as the forest exploded with light. A pile of tree limbs and leaves gathered up in the air stitched itself together by holding power. Snow moulded itself into the texture of soft tissue. The pile gained a center, a leg, and a head. It took a step forward, and fell apart all at once.


    And the foreigner was taken, again, back into her chamber. But the limb had taken her too. She could feel it pulling. The cold would grab the world for only so long.


    In the meanwhile, songs came to her. With her one, they made a many, and they were placed in delight.


    <hr>


    Once Upon a Time…


    Near the shell of Pathway.


    Wander, The Stonehoof, and The Stronghoof walked through The Wild. They drew away from Firmen Couth, and they found the thicktrees and woodpricked mounds give way to a brushless, expanding firmament. The ground, which was speckled different shades of brown, dark green, and the creamy yellow had by sand, sloped and swerved in its shape. It had been exploded and shaken into a cloud-scraping plain of flatmounts, each of which plummeted into a new barren, itself marked by winding banks of snow that vined their globe, past the point where she could not see.


    They traversed the peak of one such flatmount. A gust of wind pushed at Wander, and The Bell tied her rope body tight around Wander''s waist.


    "You can go back inside," Wander said. "We''ll see nobody out here."


    "I like the breeze," she replied. "And your lowers are too loose." She knotted herself.


    The Stonehoof had no cover to hide behind and walked closer to her. She eyed Fragile. The Sixbraid was slumped over The Stronghoof, breathing quickly and heavily. When she was sure her brother would not reply, she turned to Wander, whose eyes flicked at the approaching shadow. She removed a fistful of seeds from one of The Stronghoof''s bags and threw it forward, casting it into the soil. The Stonehoof grunted and lapped them up and grunted and retreated to a shorter distance than it had kept before.


    Fragile snored in The Stronghoof''s ear. It glanced back at the Sixbraid, whose thick locks were pulled up by the wind and blown around into its eyes. Its tongue flicked around and it shook its head, rustling his sleep. He mumbled softly, and wrapped his arms tighter around its neck. It blinked.


    When it was dark, Wander stopped the party at the base of the flatmound, which they used the last rays of sunlight to descend. She took Fragile from The Stronghoof''s back into her arms and wrapped him up in his leather sack. She untied a bundle of wood from The Stronghoof and placed some of it in a circle of stones, and kindled it using her metal mould. She chewed a wad of her pipe-fuel and fell asleep on The Stronghoof''s back.


    The Sixbraid waited until he had felt Wander''s eye drift from his supine body. Then she could hear him drag himself up, limp past a thick patch of bushes and tall rocks and move into the barren. She opened her eyes and watched him fade from sight, and attended to some chores.


    When the darkness returned Fragile to her, Wander was on the ground by the fire, sharpening her weapons. He turned a paler shade.


    "Feeling better?" she asked.


    He gulped before he spoke. "Y-ye-" His voice shifted around in pitch, cut up by his throat, and he coughed. He looked at her, crossed his hands, and nodded.


    Wander sheathed her blade and stood up. She draped a blanket around his shoulders. He blushed and winced when he pulled it close. The stabbing pain in his shoulder made itself known. Wander dusted away snow and rocks free from a patch of ground.


    "While we''re up," she said. "I want to look at my cut, if you''ll allow it."


    "Your cut?"


    "On your back. You fainted in the Couth. I want to see if there is a problem. If needed, I can cover it with a helper."


    Fragile''s shoulder stabbed again. He stepped over to the patch and sat, so she removed his coldover. The hoofskin over underneath had been thinly whiskered by their endeavors, and when he bared his flesh for her look, he could look upon his body and see how it had been blasted up by slices, spots, and a pale roughness running over all of it that had been spoken of by his father. It, and how Wander''s eyes could take it in, formed a word for his mind that he did not know, and it pressed on his heart so that he wished to be wrapped in a hundred overs.


    Wander''s hands gripped the soft curves of his shoulders. Her hand lingered on it and its tenderness firmed her gut. She laid a hand on his back, which was so light and small. She unwrapped the bandage she had made, letting the brown gash above his skin gasp and feel the cold. She laid a hand on it and pressed her thumb to different points.


    "Wander," Fragile asked, "how did you learn to fight pain?"


    She took a brush and began to eke out a crust of dirt that had accrued on the edges of the wound. "The Family brought it to me."


    Fragile flinched when she passed over his tender core and pressed his thumbs together. "They have their own ways?"


    "Yes. I do not know if you would hear them. They have many different ones."


    He said nothing else. She dabbed the opening with a cloth, covered with liquid. "There are men in the Family who look at water," she continued. "They have ones who look at flowers and at rocks too, but it was one of-water who brought it to me."


    "They work water?"


    She opened a bottle and let some of the liquid inside run into the cavity. Fragile felt a great soothing sensation run through his whole body. His eyes drooped. "It is what you need to fight pain," she said. "Waters and waters." She wrapped a hand around his neck and placed a finger on his throat.


    "When I was a fireworker," Fragile said, "bata said that pain – it is the water in us, asking to get out. That is why fire cures it."


    Wander stretched out a length of black cloth and she raised an eyebrow. "You were a fireworker?"


    "Yes," he said. She wrapped the cloth around the wound, tying it off where she had before. "My bata taught me."


    She manipulated his arms and slid his over back over him. "Why did you tell me you worked with metal?"


    "Meta-?" Fragile squeezed his eyes shut. She put the blanket back over him and put him in his sleeping spot, and knelt down.


    "Fire has some uses," Wander said. "It is the first sun."


    "There is a first sun?" he mumbled.


    Wander watched his eyes shiver and shut again. She rested an arm over her knee and looked up at the stars.


    -


    As soon as the Wild''s woodland had given up, after another day of travel, it returned. The trees were far apart and joined by grasses of maroon, silver, and aquamarine. They flew from and snuggled an array of rooted hearts, from the bushes, the little weeds that lived in their shade, to the trees they lived in the shadow of. The Clucks raised themselves up high in thick, flat trunks that were pearly white and offered black spots where water flowed; the Cords assembled themselves from a decentered, lumpen sort of vines that curled themselves into a weighty wick with flower buds emptied by the cold. And the howlsman''s roots appeared as curling teeth that swung up into reddish-brown waves that stunk of iron and manure. There was a dab of snow stretched across the ground, the end of a melt. Am looked down from his loft in the clouds, storming with burnished brays cast to twinkle by the fog. The beams of his cannon played in the colors of the roots, stems, and frozen leaves.


    The ground crest into a great bowl, where a pack of animals tumbled by. Wander and Fragile looked in wonderment of uncommon equality at the sight, which was impossible: rootheads, howls, and woolbearers flocked together as like, running across the places where the trees that arched up in staircase broke down, gave way to smooth, mounded with dirt where the sun shined and found its way past the floated waters. There were four trees spread thin around their recent pitch, each of those stretching out their coiled boughs like tongues of fire. The ground was sand and colored moss, run through by licks of rust and blades of rock with itchy spines that cut down and were hidden by the flattened soil heaves. There was all but silence in it for the two besides the rush and roar of that pack, for they were way beyond any road and the wings, who did not stop singing, were no longer mentioned by their ears.


    They went to sleep surrounded by metallic light, which some of the arching trees sucked up and unspooled when Am and his party march down to blue and the better, golden lot they hid.


    The next morning, Wander consulted her guide. They rose up out of the grass into a Goalish shell. It was large and full of people, and they were not by walls or guards of any kind as they passed freely between its seats, into a place where they could be seen. Raucuous partying could be heard within. Goalish singing erupted from all corners of the air, praising the virtues of a "Trick-maker".


    Rather than loosen his gait, Fragile clung to Wander.


    "Have you ever been so happily received?" he asked.


    "Yes, once," she said. She pushed up her hat, whose rim shielded her eyes from the sun. "But the Sixbraids have all gone, now. Except one. So keep your eyes open."


    Fragile blinked.


    Kept by heavy rope leashes were four-footed mammals with thick pelts being put to the knife. Their blood was drained into transparent bladders that were carried by women in heavy brown coldovers to pour out among crops. The Goals had strung up their home as capped thatch huts where golden and scarlet and greening bounty was kept, sending out a good smell despite their patchwork and well-gapped exteriors. Over on a meatbearer was milked into jars of clay, and over it the clay for the jars was was wrapped in lumps by more Goals and brought to rocks leaned and stacked against one another and poured out billows of smoke.


    The men wore coats of fur, stripped and thin, that ran down past their ankles and was pinned up by silken webs; the webs on the men with wrinkling skin and silver shocks of hair had grown in size, but there were some that exploded, flowing out and seizing over the hips and shoulders of even a younger one''s garment.


    Their appreciation for the Goals'' mean condition grew, and between their dress and popular jubilation, Wander began to ntice a third feature in their host. With no excluding factor of age or condition, more than less of the Goals she saw had suffered a great injury. Some were missing an ear. More common were missing fingers and fingernails. The right hand of one young man had been totally cut away. Of those who had not received any wound at all, half walked tilted, supporting themselves with sticks, poles, or each other.


    The ground underneath their feet was moist. Wander''s boots planted in it and came up showering gelatinous chunks of different whole, splashing down and squirting back into a single mass.


    "This is good land for it," she said. "The growing. It will be, once the warmth returns."


    Fragile looked up at her and took a lively note from her gaze. "Have you seen much growing?"


    "I grew where such was grown." She traced the long shielded stem of a shrivelled, scarlet root that shot up from the ground beside them. "I cut down hearts like these."


    There were paths spread between the places and the animals, the fires and the fields, all decorate with a sprinkling of amber stones. The Goals hopped on and over them, chanting, grumbling and govalling in a dialect mashed together from sounds that were now more familiar than foreign to both the foreigners. They walked over the paths and, for the first time, the born of the shell paid them notice. Wandering eyes were cast onto their strange appearance.


    "Outmen!" sounded a roar. Wander turned around by a snap, and Fragile blantantly swirled around, searching for the terror.


    A tall Goal, with a set of tall friends, stood nearby, relaxing and joking by a fire. The shouter had thrown down the stick on which he leaned and he thundered out toward Wander. There was quiet in his group as they hushed to turn and watch.


    "Fists or legs?" he called out towards Wander.


    "What gains my choice?" she called out.


    He spat. "We don''t have all day," he said. "Fists, then!"


    He ran at Wander. She cast Fragile aside and took his charge without moving.


    She pushed him backwards slightly and patted the dust from her shoulderskin. Her hat had been crooked, so she fixed it.


    The man rose to nearly her height and puffed up. Then he wrapped his arms around Wander and shouted.


    "New man!" he roared. "New man!"


    The crowd came over to her and surrounded Wander and they began to cry out and chatter at her and offer her trinkets. Soon they surrounded Fragile as well, pushing drinks and pieces of food at him.


    "Drink up, brother!" a man enticed. "You will feel like you are in a cloud!"


    Wander extracted herself and Fragile from the revellers and left them to continue their pleasures. Before exiting entirely she grabbed the proferred drink, swallowed it in one gulp, and threw back the cup to its owner, whose jaw dropped. The festival continued.


    A large roundseat sat on a snowy hill that the edge of the shell''s domes and shoots washed onto. Wander''s head set forward as they moved toward it, and Fragile''s turned more, jumping between less-than-strangers. Their mutterings and silver badges had now been seen, in places like Partplant and Firmen Couth and Uff''s shared palazzo, and the illegible scrawl they posed had given way to forms and faces. They fell upon a crowd of Goals, emerging from the shadows with stumble and scrubbed ducts into anyplace the clouds and their white light did not fall. The necks and arms of that crop were marked with black marks, whose indentation was prominent enough to suggest a bite. Fragile''s head spun twice.


    "Wander," he said. "The… is that…?"


    She looked where he was looking. Some of the Goals sat down in the snow and grass and laughed. One bit into another and talked, spilling red liquid from their mouth. They laughed more.


    Wander hand went to her hip, and reached for her Kathan blade. The gaze of the night-dwelling eaters'' gaze met their own. The shift of one among it, a woman with boasting cheeks, a thick brow that crossed her forehead, and a smile that wrapped around her face sprang up from the group. She threw herself into a stride at the foreigners.


    "Star, helper," the woman exclaimed. She opened her arms. "What have you seen?"


    "Eldsister Bestplace!" Fragile''s jaw opened. "You''re here too?"


    "I am. That all might marvel at my sight, braid-born." The Meeter-plague looked at the sunken bolts on Fragile''s cheek and wrists, and the bind that wrapped around his chest. Her eyes bugged at Wander''s wounds, which turned out instead as spotting black welts on her wrists, neck and face. Her smile fell. "And I at yours. Have you fought a grand?''


    Wander''s eyelids buckled as the extent of her Goalish gave way. "Wander has been in fights, eldsister," Fragile said. "She has thrown down many Laruns since we met."


    "I can see it."


    "What has joined our paths?" Wander asked Bestplace. She narrowed her eyes at the other meeters, who lounged in the dark and waved over with smiles. "Is this the last piece of your shell?"


    Bestplace scratched her head. "Perhaps we should sit for it," she said. "This is not a place you are like to find friends or seats. Let us be yours. We have fire cooking, and we have been given food that we cannot eat. So help us with it."


    The wind blew against Wander''s face, which repulsed it. "Do you have skypetals?" she asked. "I need them for firework."


    "We have every kind."


    She took her hand off her blade. "Then we will sit."


    -


    Bestplace brought them in to the Dip meeters'' roundseat. Their house in the Goals'' shell was a one-room, two-story thatched hut, where the air pressed up smoke and and no light. A fire at the center of the dirt floor was kept dim and down to coals, and every gap and hole in the circular was stuffed up by mud and grass. Meeters of every shape and age- children clinging to posts, grandfathers clucking at their daughters, and husbands chattering among themselves, were clad in the smooth, bright yellow shoulder-coats of the Dip Goals, and they looked down on either sides of the strangers from footings that rounded the walls and were accessed by pink rigging. They slept, spoke and ate.


    Bestplace warmed a large platter of jumper carcasses and viscera over the flames. "You still have the cut I gave you?" she asked Wander.


    Fragile''s gaze stuttered toward her torso. It throbbed at the memory. "I keep all my cuts," she said.


    "I wish I hadn''t done it," Bestplace replied. "It seemed a wrong wound."


    "I made one greater. I am glad to have yours. It helps me recall."


    Bestplace''s eyes crinkled and she smiled. "We have lost many friends," she said. "But we also have new ones. Many like the night ruler in this place. The Wild is good for us. We miss our seats, but we have a new one."


    "What is happening in it, eldsister?" Fragile asked. "The lights and the screaming?"


    "It''s one of their own works." She leaned back on her hands. "Not ours. It is unseen to most."


    Wander leaned forward. "I knew of the Sixbraids'' parties. I''ve known nothing like this."


    "It is the Wild. The Pathways call it Trickmaking."


    "Pathways," Wander repeated.


    "Many of their kind have said this. I believe the work is a kind of offering." She shrugged. "That is its face, regardless."


    "An offering?" Fragile asked. "It is for a ruler?"


    "No." Bestplace offered the platter to Wander, who gorged herself. "It is not a rule."


    "How do you know?" Wander asked through her food.


    "Because they expect a reply."


    Wander''s eyes flicked at Fragile, who blinked. She swallowed.


    Bestplace rubbed her hands. "Did you do as I asked?"


    "We did. But if you''re here, I suppose it did no good."


    "I would not stand on that." Bestplace ran a hand under her nose. "I kept moving and I was followed. I have many more friends than these. I have hope that what you did may let some of them find their way back from where they came. I must, as I will never again turn back to that country."


    Wander took another bite. "None of us will."


    A meeter strode in past the open threshold and tapped Bestplace on the shoulder, handing her a small red flower. She handed it to Wander over the flames, who took it into her vest.


    "And you, Star?" Bestplace clasped her hands. "Our revels were once so rudely interrupted. Will you now at last show your cause to me? It must be for somewhere far. Else we would not have met, again."


    Wander put the platter down. She wiped her mouth. "Since we met," she said, "I have come to know him as the Cane."


    Bestplace''s head tilted. "All this way, for such a man? Will you throw him down too?"


    "I will."


    "How would such a man touch you, in Shaminkat? His power must be great."


    "It is."


    Bestplace stood up. "We will see the Lodge," she said. "She sees no-one without a voice. I will give it to her."


    -


    Wander finished her eating and they left the meeters'' seat. They arrived at the Lodge of the Pathway Goals. Their seat was not especially fortified, as the others had been. The Lodge was tall, with swept roofs. The carpentry employed in its construction was uncomplicated. It was seated on a great dirt mound that rose high into the air and looked into the sky. Wander and Fragile were met at the gate by a group of Goals wielding short, tasselled blades.


    One of the Goals was tall and had long facial hair. His eyes were blue. "Who are you?" he demanded. "You are an offman. Offman should not come to this place." He turned to Fragile and twisted up his face. "Little one – have you spoke secrets to this kind? Have you given over sights to this offman? Tell us, or we shall break ourselves upon you."


    Bestplace stepped forward.


    "This is the Dry Man," she said. "If wings have flown this way from the sun, they are wings that have travelled from her. If light has sped this way from the sun, it is light that has travelled from her. If others have come this way from the sun, they are others that have travelled from her. She is the Star. She is a murder of many Laruns, and she will become a disaster among them. She is fire that shall slit and crucify their sights and seeings. She has come to stab weapons into the heart of their large work."


    "What of the boy?"


    Bestplace turned to Wander.


    "He is a Sixbraid," the Star said. "A way-keeper. He has never told a sight. He guides my blade."


    The Goals looked at her in awe. She unsheathed her weapon, and showed them the words of Athad which ran down its face. "We have come to your place seeking The Cane. The masked man who has pressed on your kind. I have come to take a word from him. Then his water shall be spilled and all may drink of it."


    At the title of De, the Goals'' skin drained of blood. "We know the Cane," one said. "But we have not known him in this season.


    Wander''s blade lowered. "I seek another. Four others. One whose face had been cut apart, and wrapped in clothes. He is kept by children."


    The Goals looked at each other and shook their heads. She sheathed her blade and turned away.


    "Thank you," she said to Bestplace, "for what you said. But it seems I was wrong."


    "Ask for a Trick," one of the Goals said.


    She turned toward the Goal.


    "A trick, Dry Man," he repeated. "You can be told."


    "No offman has had a trick," the other Goals chastised. "It is a sight."


    "The helper-born speaks her work," the Goal insisted. He held a long wood sticker, which he stamped in the ground. "Do we not adore it? If this one works on outmen, why do we not let her ask? It is the Maker''s sight, not one of born."


    The Walls looked at one another. They stepped aside.


    Bestplace, Wander and Fragile proceeded up the narrow trail of beams that let them hike the steep incline up to the redoubt, its walls sloping toward the ground and leaning down when they reached the sky, and all covered in buzzing Goalish script that the volume turned in the eye to a buzzing fur. The Lodge of the Pathways grew tall and near. The fires that made its shape drifted in the wind from leather mounts. A narrow gap at its base was covered by rugs and rugs, wound with images of wings and more words. Wander could read some of them now, but she looked twice at every word and matched it to something Fragile had said. It did not stop her brow from twisting.


    0012 WHEN OFFENDERS COME TO THE SHELL IN THOUSANDS, LIGHTCATCHERS, CUT APART TEN THOUSANDS LARUN, SAYS, KEEP BACK FROM YOUR SHELLS, WORK FIRE ON ALL PROVISIONS, SUBMIT LITTLECANES TO THE LEAST ABLE, SUBMIT TO THEM HELP OF SIGHTLESS HEARTS, LIGHTCATCHERS, DROVE BACK TEN THOUSANDS LARUN, SAYS, THE SHELL IS THE PIT OF A LARUN


    0013 WHEN OFFENDERS ARE IN THE ROUNDS IN THOUSANDS, WATERTAKERS, GRABBED AN OFFENDER LODGE, SAYS, OPEN YOUR SHELLS, BECOME KNOWERS, SUBMIT TO THEM ALL CANES AND HOWLS AND WORKS OF FIRE, CREATE A GUIDE OF HEARTS AND REPEAT IT ON YOUR SHELLS, WATERTAKERS, GRABBED AN OFFENDER LODGE, SAYS, THE ROUNDS ARE THE CAGE OF A LARUN


    0014 WHEN OFFENDERS REMIT GIFTS TO THE BORN, SHOOTER, EXTRACTED TEN THOUSANDS LARUN GIFTS, SAYS, THE LARUN''S GIFT IS NOT HIS STONE, SHOOTER, EXTRACTED TEN THOUSAND LARUN GIFTS, SAYS, THE LARUN''S GIFT IS HIS MESSENGER


    0015 WHEN OFFENDERS CUT APART THE CHILDREN OF THE BORN…


    0001 WHEN OFFENDERS WORK FIRE ON ALL SHELLS OF THE BORN…


    0002 WHEN OFFENDERS WORK FIRE ON ALL HEARTS AND EATINGS OF THE BORN…


    0003 WHEN OFFENDERS WRAP THE BORN IN METAL…


    0004 WHEN OFFENDERS WORK FIRE AND DEFACE THE RULED GIFTS OF THE BORN…


    0005 WHEN OFFENDERS WORK BLADES ON ALL THE BRAIDS AND TIES OF THE BORN…


    The rugs were separated from them by another Wall standing guard. Her grip tightened on the etched wooden pole she carried as Wander and her signs came into focus.


    "Rounds-Wall," the Wall-Woman said to Bestplace, "what path is this? Why have you brought an outman into our sight?"


    "This is the Dry-Man of the river. She would see the Lodge. I speak for her."


    The Wall-Woman turned her eyes up at Wander, with whom she was near level. She stepped aside. As Fragile moved to follow Wander inside, The Wall-Woman grabbed his shoulder. "Not him."


    Wander grabbed her offending limb with enough force that the wall''s brow lifted.


    Bestplace tugged Fragile, who was released. "He can say it," Bestplace said. "The problem. Can''t you, helper?"


    Fragile looked up at Wander and at the Wall-Woman. "The Lodge must be a woman," he said. "It is not way-keeping. I would be in-house."


    The meeter brought him back. "We''ll wait on your return," she said.


    Wander looked at Fragile. He nodded quickly, while the corners of his mouth flailed up and down. She released the Wall-Woman''s arm and stepped inside.


    The Pathway Lodge was snug. It contained many more weavings than its facade, which wrapped around the walls and filled them with more words that spoke of comparable subjects. A woman sat at the center of its hall, faced away from the foreigner and pried at by a pair of tenders. The siter''s over had been sembled from a rough brown tuck, bound at her waist by a fraying golden rope. The room took its bright from lantern nets, hung between a post row that trailed weavings and propped up the hall''s cover, and these nets were woven from thin, flat ties of oaky hoofhair. The light baked into the floor, which had been filled by a sediment the shade of adobe. It brought warm into her boots.


    The hall had installed no viewlets, loopholes or portals, so that there were only the wood and the walls and ancient words, and the light that let them speak. Opposite her side nested a fire in a roundtop hearth, whose contours came up to a curving join right above their spot. Its fuels were stacked in a cone of a wood that wreathed itself in blaze. There was a group of fifteen cushions sitting by, and all of these were uninhabited. A golden coin took one place on each.


    When she looked upward, Wander''s eye was snatched up by The Lodge. A series of rocksewn images, suspended by the same means as the lanterns, was orchestrated and swung around the roaring hearth. Wander''s hand descended to where her blade once was. Her gaze could extract every piece of it; she found the beads of sweat on the woman''s head. Another image depicted two men in a kiss, surrounded by a happy mass of Goals. A third image depicted a body dissolving into ashes that flew out from a Goalish mortality pyre. The fourth depicted a Goal, dressed in the screaming gold of the Dip meeters, crushing a Larun with a big stone.


    The images wound around and around the whole Lodge, showing different incidents and conditions with figures that Wander recognized from their brief time in the Pathways'' shell. She found twelve in all.


    The sitting woman, whose stool brought her up to Wander''s chest, was attended by a few others in like dress, and as they approached a cause for their service produced itself. Like the rest of the Pathway Goals, each inhabitant was missing a piece of their body; both of her tenders were missing a tip of a finger on either hand, which they used to spoon food into the woman''s mouth from black bowls. Their charge''s skin was flush with dark crops of maroon spots and cross, pale indentations. Her eyes were fused shut and she was missing two teeth from her lower gum, which she exposed to take in the scoops of brother that her tenders pushed through. When Wander had arrived, she spoke in a clear voice, and drew out each note without phlegm or choler. "My arms were not taken," she called.


    Wander looked down at the Goal, who did not twist over to return her gaze. She received another spoon of broth.


    "To whom were they gave, birthwoman?" Wander asked.


    "The one we adore." She turned and blinked at the warrior. "Give us your name, so that we need not take it."


    "I am the Dry Man," Wander said.


    "That is true. Why have you come, outman?"


    "I am searching for a Larun," she said. "I seek to break him. Your men told me to receive a trick."


    The Lodge frowned. "I am not young, Dry Man. Your blade jumps to your hand. You have the words of Athad. Have you not come to break me too?"


    Wander looked down and found that her fingers were wrapped around the handle of her Kathan blade. She released it and looked at the images populating the Lodge. "I was startled," she said. "You have worked sight in stones. It appears a plagueish thing."


    "They are Tricks." The Lodge followed her gaze up to the images. "They are not from the rulers. But your plague colors them wrong. I have heard this word. You shake at it. These have shown us ways."


    "Where are they from?"


    "A heart," she said. "The Trickmaker. You seek a Trick from him?"


    The Lodge stood. One of her tenders brought her a walking stick, which she leaned on. "These are sights," she said. "It disputes the virtue to offer them. So I will say it to you."


    "What?"


    "Carry our offerings," she said. "Carry them to the Maker."


    Wander tilted her head.


    "Carry them," she said, "and you may have your sight yourself. We need not deliver it. And virtue is retained."


    Wander frowned.


    "You do not see the good?" the Lodge asked.


    "I am in a chase," she said. "I am already passed or far away from the one I need. If I cannot now receive your gift I would just as soon throw out from this place and dig through the rounds myself. I have always done without it."


    The Lodge tapped her cane. "Do you know my daughters?" she asked.


    Wander looked at her tenders. "No."


    The Lodge laid a hand on the shorter tender. She had a short nose, little eyes, and her face was populated by gray lumps. "This is Tugsheart," The Lodge said.


    "Dry Man," said Tugsheart.


    The Lodge moved to the second, greater tender. She had a long nose, and she walked with a hunch, and her lips kept open so that her teeth were bared. "This is Hithit," The Lodge said. "She has killed ten thousands heart."


    Wander looked at Hithit. The Lodge-daughter nodded at her. "Your arm has noble face, Dry Man."


    "I will choose one to go with you tomorrow," The Lodge said. "On this night. Then I will be gone, and the Lodge shall be new."


    "I have not said my way, yet," said Wander.


    "You need your trick," the Lodge said. "And we need ours. You will bring them to the Trickmaker. The one we adore. When it is done, you shall have a hold on the man you seek."


    Wander flexed her fingers.


    The Lodge called out towards the entrance. "Eldwoman."


    The Wall-Woman entered, her massive form sweeping past the rugs. "Lodge."


    "This is the name," she said. She raised her finger at Wander. "Give her the offerings. If she has no place, then give it to her."


    The Wall moved to a gilded receptacle stood on an block of stone forward the Lodge and her seat and pushed aside a curtain concealing its contents. She took out a sack of silky cloth and presented it to Wander.


    Wander looked down at it.


    "I do not know what your cause is," Wander said, "And I want no part in it. I will find the man with my eye."


    She swept past the rugs of the roundseat''s entrance. The Lodge bent her head, and Hithit held her arm.


    "I can carry it, birthwoman," she said. "Do not worry."


    Tugsheart watched the warrior leave. The grip on her scoop tensed.


    "Tell her, Tugs," Hithit said. "Tell her it will be well."


    The Pathway''s gaze shifted. She blinked.


    "It will," she said. "Yes, it will. I promise."


    -


    They descended the mound and returned to the house of Bestplace, where they supped.


    They sat around the fire with meeters, who were being taken in by giggles and boistering just as the Pathways'' shell had began to drowse and retire from their partying. Fragile and Wander sat around the meeters'' fire, eating meat and loaves while the meeters themselves suckled from one another.


    A meeter entered their house and whispered down at Bestplace, who went to Wander and spoke inside her ear. Wander brushed her mouth with her robe and muttered to Fragile before rising, picking her way around the crowd of revellers into the dark and silence of the shell.


    She swept past the seat''s curtain and found the tender Tugsheart, hugging herself in the cold, accompanied by the Lodge''s Wall-Woman.


    "Aie, Dry Man," Tugsheart said.


    "Aie," Wander said. "Lodge-daughter."


    "Yes." Tugsheart extended her hand to Wander. It contained a bag made from a very soft, pearl-white pelt. When Wander took it, it clinked.


    "I wish you would reconsider," Tugsheart said.


    Wander''s hand containing the person remained outstretched. "Reconsider what?"


    "Your choice. You will not help with our Trickmaking."


    "I cannot." Wander shook her head. "I do not know what of me has a hold on your Wiser."


    Tugsheart frowned. "The Trickmaking is very dangerous," she said. "We do not know why. Once, I had twelve sisters. None of them has returned from this project. A Dry Man, one with words, one who adores us – it is like the rulers are speaking again." Tugsheart grit her teeth. "She… she sees them in the night."


    "Lodge-daughter," the Wall-Woman boomed.


    "Keep your place," Tugsheart spat. She turned back to Wander. "It is true. I promise it."


    Wander tilted her head. "Twelve?"


    "Yes. Each time, the Trick has come to us. Friends have gone and brought it back. But not them." She wrapped her shawl around herself. "It is now my Hithit who must go. I am not afraid to be alone. It is for my birthwoman. I wish she would wait for us, a little while, when she arrives at the rulers'' seat. I want her to watch us breath."


    Wander blinked. She rolled around the purse. She crinkled it in her hand. "How far must she go?"


    "A day''s charge to the dark. But we are in the Wild. We do not know what will crash on us."


    "When does she leave?"


    "Tomorrow."


    She was silent and the wind whistled. She tossed the purse back to the wall-woman.


    "We''ll go," she said.


    -


    Wander sat herself down and watched the Pathway Goals continue their celebration. She heard muttering. She looked over at Fragile. His whispers were soft enough that a weaker ear would not have seized them.


    "Please leave," he hissed. "I have no Firstpoint. Please leave… I have no Firstpoint..." He curled up.


    "Can you see any better here?" she asked The Bell.


    The Bell shivered around her chest. "I don''t know," she said. "I felt as though I could see the other times."


    She wrapped herself around Fragile''s wrist and arm. "Do not rely on me, Joyous one."


    Bestplace sat before her. "What did she want, this shell-bound?"


    Wander rubbed residue over the signs of her blaith. "You ought not to believe a wrong in yourself," she said.


    Bestplace tilted your head.


    "The cut you made," she said. "Fell into another." She rubbed her blaith again. "A good kind."


    "There are no good cuts."


    "There are some," she said. "The surface grows back stern."


    Bestplace tilted her head. "Stern," she said, "is not the power."


    Wander quit rubbing her blaith and laid her arm on it. "And what is?"


    "The water," she said. She raised hand to her mouth. "Why do you believe the ruler has us take it?"


    "I know only of one without your plague who has sought such an appetite," she said. "He did it from of his oddity. It saved ten-thousands heart. And it sent him to the rulers."


    "Who?"


    She looked at Fragile. Bestplace turned to the Sixbraid and widened her eyes.


    "He?" She sputtered. "He sought the gift?"


    "From himself. What power is in this ending work?"


    Bestplace crossed her legs and folded her hands in her lap. "Does my cut still fall into another?"


    Wander looked at her. "No."


    "Why not?"


    "Because it fell upon another."


    Her eyes moved to Fragile again, but without her purpose. Bestplace shook her head.


    "How have you not yet lost the river-brother?" she asked.


    "I have lost him twice."


    Bestplace blinked. She shut her eyes. "The cut always falls upon another," she said. "Do you know this?"


    Wander raised her brow. She slid her blaith into its sheath and laid down.


    "I did not cut him before that time," she said. "I never will again."


    "That is not my word," Bestplace said. "The cut always falls upon another."


    She glanced at the meeter. "I cannot hear it."


    Bestplace shook her head again. She stood up, looked down at her and the Sixbraid.


    "Rest deep, Dry Man," Bestplace said. "I hope your sights are adorable."


    And the meeter departed her house.


    -


    In the morning the Goals'' sack was tied to Wander''s back. Fragile hugged The Stonehoof and Wander handed Bestplace The Stronghoof''s lead.


    "Do you feed on beasts?" Wander asked.


    "Not this one," she replied. She reached out and touched The Stronghoof''s neck. "He will have water and what he likes, and ready for your rejoin. You have my promise, Dry Man. And my offerings."


    "It doesn''t need much," Wander said. She tweaked its nose and it pressed against her.


    The procession of Wander and her Pathway guides proceeded past the last roundseat, at which point they were followed by fewer and fewer Goals until it was only them and Hithit. The Lodge-daughter.


    "They would have sent a man otherwise," Hithit said. "There are not many wall-women."


    "What is different?" Wander asked. She shifted the weight on her back. They walked through the woods, and Fragile observed the sack Wander hauled. "I am still surprised they would give it to an outman. Your kin in the East would have something to say about it, regardless of the threat."


    Hithit brushed her hair back. "The Trick is not from Rulers. It has always been an outish thing. You and he are outmen. There are no gaps we must pass through."


    Hithit looked at her weapon. Wander noticed her gaze, which was lingering and soft.


    "Does my outcane interest you?" she asked.


    "I have not seen a blade that is not a cane," Hithit said. "I like them fine."


    "It is a cane," Wander said. "I have come to like your word for it. Its face addles. Others fix on them like they are hearts or parts. I have not."


    Fragile looked away at this. Hithit saw her kinsman''s expression, and moved to it. "A blade is a heart," Hithit said. "There is no gap between us."


    "I have never seen it, or seen it speak."


    "You would have seen my brother in his work," Hithit said. "He has the lines."


    Fragile looked at her. "W-what?" A bead of sweat dripped from his brow.


    "The lines of the pair. Do you not keep ways, River-Son?"


    Fragile held a hand up to his head. He was pouring sweat. They turned and looked at him. "What''s the matter?" Wander asked.


    He did not reply.


    "I-it''s nothing," he said. "I saw a shadow once." He wiped his brow and nose, and his hand found drops of water. They continued.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    "On blades," Wander said. "The terror of pain drives us together. There are those who see a heart in them. But there is little to it."


    She unbelted her Kathan Blade and handed it to Hithit. "You can see for yourself, if you like."


    Hithit took the weapon and brought it out halfway, inspecting the ribbed sheen that ran across its surface. "What is the material?" she asked. "It is not the wallrock of our weapons. Or the Laruns''."


    "I do," she replied. "It''s bendrock, bent a special way. It''s strong, light, and very valuable. They make it in a place called Cathon."


    "Is that what your blaith is made of?" Fragile asked.


    "No." Wander shook her head. "It does not cut so well. But it serves its purpose."


    "It shines in the light," she whispered. Hithit touched the temper. Her eyes scoured its surface. After a moment, she covered it back up and returned it to its owner.


    "Do you adore such things, eldsister?" Fragile asked.


    The Lodge-daughter''s brow remained high. “Perhaps there can be pleasure in them,” she said. “But I see no other than that of pain. It is a pleasure for the heart’s seduction; for a offering of response as a meal by far easier and better-tasting than it has ever been.”


    “Do you remember the grand, eldsister?”


    "I do," she said. "A marvelous time."


    Wander looked at them with a raised brow.


    "You cannot hear it, Dry Man?" Hithit questsaid.


    “A grand,” she repeated.


    “A grand.”


    “A shaking of the ground." Hithit clapped her hands. "A fight between thousands of hearts! Like the old ones.”


    Wander''s head returned to the path. She replaced her blade on her hip. "You call it marvelous?"


    "Marvelous," Hithit repeated. “But I have visited its cost. It was not a pleasant place for me. I would like my birthman back.”


    She nodded. “And would I.”


    Fragile said nothing.


    Wander stuck a wad of resin in her mouth and chewed it. They walked. They returned to the fiendish rounds, which had grown more turbulent in their absence. Wander began to hear a rustling in the distance, and the shattering of baked soil. She unslung her blaith and its sheath.


    The covering of the trees unfurled and revealed the toss and writhing of hooded figures, wrestling in a clearing of pointed, water-greedy thorntrees. At the center of the fracas was a Larun woman, her left cheek marked with lines that blurred in Wander''s eye as she was thrown about and beaten out of clarity. She was cast to the frozen dirt, falling on a heavy cape and jostling an orange badge on her right shoulder. The fighters, who spoke in Goalish, tore at her, and their claps and muttering rang out from between the trees and furrowed Fragile''s brow.


    "They''re hurting her," he exclaimed.


    "Let them do it," said Hithit. Fragile looked at her. "It is a victory," she continued. "We have seen such a kind. The other won, with a face like that, stole children and sought out our sights. The Laruns send them to steal, and they cannot often be touched for their walls. Let them do it."


    Wander brought out the blaith from its hood and handed Fragile The Stronghoof''s lead.


    "Stay back here," she said. And she approached.


    The Goals made little noise as they pulled away jewelled strips from the woman''s face and neck and detached the many-threaded fabrics of her garment, placing them in sacks. Their disdain for the Larun could only be intuited from the repeating strikes of their fists and legs. "Take the over," one of them chattered. "Take it. That cloth from far away. Many gifts, many gifts. A victory. Get a bowl. Nose, get the bowl. Find the coins, cut her throat. Put it in there. The water, put it in there."


    Wander waded through the snow and snapped a branch in her entrance to the thorn-walled corner. The movement of the Goals stopped and some of them eknelt down and shoved the woman back on her knees. They lifted their metal canes; the blades were ragged and covered in soot and scuffling, and carved to a grinning edge.


    "More?" the same Goal asked.


    They looked around. The forest was disappeared of noise and movement. Two of them stepped forward and their heads were turned down. A Goal touched his finger to a boot-shaped indentation.


    He lifted himself up and began to scream.


    A black-robed mass launched itself down from the trees, seized the Larun from the grip of her captor and punched him in the face until she was released. Wander shielded the woman with body and unsheathed her blaith, so that the signs in it could shine where all could see.


    The speed and ease with which the men surrounding Wander and her hostage were raced away was such that Fragile did not see it happen. As soon as the one nearest Wander could discern her arm''s stark proclaim, he gave a howlsbark and dragged away a partner and a sack of loots. The others followed suit, wrenching each other up and scattering out in different directions. A pair glanced at Hithit and Fragile, crouched in the bush, as they barrelled past. Soon their sight, as well their noise, was gone, even to Wander''s hungry ear.


    She released the woman, who got to her feet. She recoiled as Wander approached her, backing against the spines of a thorntree. They pressed into her as Wander drew near and sheathed her weapon.


    "A Seenblade," she whispered in Sprak.


    Wander''s eye was turned to the mark on the Larun''s cheek. It was the same squared, three-angled palm that had marked the seats and standards of the Laruns in their settlements along the Eastern border. It had faded into the woman''s dark brown hue and was covered slightly by her hair, which was marked by a fleck of silver. In spite of her insignia and the emptied trenches in her throat and ajw, Wander realized she was not looking at a Larun, but a Goal.


    Her gaze shifted to the badge on the woman''s shoulder. The sun fell on it and revealed with glare and shadow the image of a breather''s tongue. "I have never known a Prominens to travel by herself," Wander said. "Did they cast down your party?"


    A moment passed before the woman could reply. Her nose was dripping. She rubbed it and coughed drops of orange humor into the snow. "I do not know," she said. She held her arms, laid bare by the complete harvest of the bites. "I do not know where I am. I stood up this morning and my friends were gone. My kontor, some nivmen. I was alone. They were…" Her gaze fell away and she held her head. "Things are adrift."


    Fragile and Hithit came forward, picking through the bush. The Prominens hid behind Wander at the sight of the Goals.


    "There are bites," she whispered. "There are bites, Seenblade!"


    "One could bite," Wander said. "The other cannot. They are both in my company. If you want, you can come with us back to the shell."


    The Bell unwrapped herself from Wander''s waist and climbed onto her shoulder. Wander glanced at her strand as one end of it leered at the Prominens. Both the Larun and Hithit shrank away from its sudden animation. "Is that a trick?" she asked.


    "What outness is this, Dry-man?" Hithit demanded.


    "That is a friend, eldsister," Fragile said. "A friend."


    Wander took the Bell and stuffed her in her vest. "She is a friend," she said. "Not a trick. But we seek one''s maker. Is this your space? Could you bring us to them?"


    The Prominens wiped her mouth. "My spot is many days to the light. The push of these heights makes my eyes new."


    She looked between Wander and the Goals.


    "Will you strike this Larun, Dry Man?" Hithit asked. "Perhaps your weapon has not been tried. She would offer a good trial."


    The Prominens'' brow scrunched when Hithit spoke Goalish. She grew pale when she found its meaning.


    "She can stay," Wander said. "Or she can go. Bestplace may have a spot for her."


    "Bestplace?" The Prominens sputtered.


    "We''ll conclude our errand," Wander insisted. "If you want, you can come with us back to the shell."


    A bead of sweat dripped down the Larun''s forehead. "She has said they will hurt me."


    "Yes," Wander said. "I have friends in the shell. I can ask for a place with them. They are strong enough to help you."


    "A Seenblade with hillface friends?" The Prominens shook her head. "Thank you, Seen. My name is Petal."


    "My name is Wander." She gestured to the Goals. "This is Fragile. This is a Lodge-daughter."


    The Prominens clasped her hands at the Goalish and shook them. Fragile smiled, and Hithit did not.


    She took up some of her bags, some of which Wander slung over herself, and walked alongside them as they pressed on between the trees.


    Wander led them, and Petal stayed close to her. She spoke only in Sprak. "What is it has brought you here, Seenblade?" she asked. "Who is this kind that follows you?"


    "I have come here on the work of my Firstpoint," Wander replied. "The woman is a guide. She speaks the spraks of these hillfaces. The man is a guide too."


    "Why do you seek the Trickmaker?"


    "To destroy it," she said. "It is a kind of plague. I have seen its works."


    "As have I," Petal replied. "Its works are seen in many spots. What a waste, that its breath is wrong."


    Wander said nothing, and Petal''s curiosity did not incline further questions. They travelled until the sun had passed down to the horizon.


    Petal removed a device from her bag that resembled the tube employed by the Roadpoint of nivman Bright. She looked at the stars and felt a look herself, turning to the little Goalish man, who was peeking at her shoulder and at the side of her face. He averted his gaze and blushed when she saw him do it.


    "The man is curious," Peral said. "May I speak his words?"


    Wander turned back to the Goals and flicked her eyes at Fragile, who turned to the Larun. "Words have you, Firstpoint?" he said in Sprak.


    "What a clever way-keeper," she chimed. "Yours is a good work, Seenblade. I have rarely seen ones so new with our Sprak. Do they both have this gift?"


    "It''s just him."


    "It is seen."


    "We meet many Laruns," Fragile said in Goalish. "They speak a lot."


    Petal nodded. Fragile''s head twisted. "What is the mark?" he asked.


    The Prominens laid a finger on her cheek. "This is the piece of my Lodge," she replied. "Fjelltopp and her Otiseran. I received it when I said a promise."


    "A promise?"


    "I swore to go out after our lines, into the Five Seats Under Heaven, into all the dark and feurkun places of our Harmony, and that once I was there, I would speak about the virtue of my Lodge. This is my work, and the work of the other Prominens."


    "It is the mark of a heartless one," Hithit said.


    Fragile and the Larun turned to Hithit. "Heartless?" Petal inquired. "Do you believe-"


    "Dry Man," Hithit said, "tell the Larun that if she continues to thrust upon my throat, that I will bite out hers."


    Petal stopped talking.


    "Don''t speak Goalish," Wander said.


    Hithit turned to Fragile. "Do you know what that is, River-Son?" she asked.


    Hithit spoke to Fragile with a quick pace that Wander had not received in her exchanges with the Lodge-daughter. She accented her longest words and melted the ends of each syllable into the other. Fragile''s brow turned and he held his arms. "Yes. I said it once. But…"


    "But?"


    "I have known many called that way. They call themselves Freemen. Now I call them that. They are kind. They seem heartsful."


    "Then you are wrong. They are a different kind. Like heartless ones. Like the ones they make of us. The ones they put in bonds."


    She turned her head to the Larun, who tried not to look at Hithit. "This one gave away her heart," she said. "To strike her is to strike a stone. Yes?"


    Her gaze fixed on him and Fragile struggled to meet. "Yes, eldsister."


    -


    They came before a steep, rocky pass. The trees and soil dried out and spent themselves into ravines that draped the black and mottled floor of the world. The fissures cut between plains of stone that were shouldered by thin juts and outcroppings.


    "Are you sure this is where we must go?" Hithit asked.


    Wander looked up at the stars. "Yes," she said. "We can move as a line."


    "Those paths look weak," The Prominens said. "And what if the rocks fall down on us?"


    "We don''t have time to go around," Wander said. She looked at Fragile and Hithit. "Take him back," she told the girl. "And the Larun. And yourself."


    "I will not."


    "You are the only one who could do it," she said. "If you do not two may be lost. Or three."


    Hithit''s eyes narrowed. "I will bring in my virtue," she said. "Come with me as you please. But it will be done."


    Fragile looked up at Wander.


    "I''ll be careful," he said. "Please, do not worry."


    "I can''t touch you for that long," she said. She looked at Petal. "Hold his hand. Make sure he doesn''t fall."


    "I would leap in after him if you asked," said the Prominens.


    "Hold his hand."


    "I will, Seenblade."


    They ascended the slope in a file. Hithit walked before Wander. The Prominens walked before Fragile, and kept a tight grip on his shoulder as they stumbled over the crumbling layers. They threaded the needle of the path. They came in reach of a place where it widened into a round overlook, where a tree the size of Fragile rested carefully on the dirt of the plummet.


    Wander tiptoed through the path. She moved so neatly that the others could hardly hear her breathing or the shuffle of her armor or gloves, or the shift of metal in her boots. She laid it down on jagged stone and slipped. In regaining her footing, she slammed her foot down on the platform, and the path they walked gave out in a fury of dust.


    Wander punched her arm into the stone and clung to the cliffside, her arm coiled around Hithit''s torso. Debris began to pelt Petal and Fragile from the crags as a roaring mass of soil was set loose from the peaks up above. Petal took Fragile and hid him with her body; as she did so, flints and shrapnel cracked around and against her, and a shard of stone slashed her across the arm. She hauled up the Sixbraid and charged forward, leaping onto the platform before the rest of the ledge dissolved into underneath them.


    The clatter of stones fell away as the pack tumbled further down the gap, past the point where their ears could grip. The wind buffetted them, throwing their hair to the side and getting Fragile''s in Petal''s face.


    She brushed it back. "Still breathing?" the Prominens asked. She looked down at him when there was no answer.


    The Sixbraid''s eyes were open, but bulged. When she found the point of her interest, she released him.


    "What''s happening?" she murmured.


    The barrage had skewered Petal''s garment and it was tattered open. A pinched white crescent put a jagging trace up and around her elbow. Wander''s eyes widened as the light from it reached her cling on the cliffside. Hithit''s grip tightened around her torso.


    The scratch blinked away as Wander found it in herself to wrap Hithit''s arms around her neck, sweep out her Kathan blade and stab it into the rockface. She traversed the sundered gap, launching them from cling to cling, and biting half an inch into solid rock with the weapon and her fingertips. They shot through her gloves into the black igneous stone, and the sword snapped in half as they approached their aim, breaking apart with a shriek and sending chunks of stone soaring into the dark.


    She launched into the air and landed on the overlook in a heap. Wander got to her feet and found Fragile disconnecting himself from the Prominens, whose body writhed and waved up and down. Wander withdrew her blaith, covered it with residue, and brandished it along with the severed maw of the Kathan blade.


    "Fragile," she said. "Get back."


    Hithit struggled to her feet. "What are you doing?"


    As he fell away from the Prominens, Wander rushed forward. Petal was pierced through the chest and Wander clenched the Hesigns on her blaith. The spheres flickered for a moment, before they sputtered and died.


    Petal''s body reached out and pushed Wander away. The shove was strong enough to dislodge Wander''s grip and send her into a tumble, but so gentle that she fell easily upon the dirt. The blaith shot out of Petal''s chest and planted in the ground at a crooked angle.


    Wander rushed forward again with her Kathan blade, aimed directly at the creature''s head. Before she could do so, she was tackled by Hithit, who reached for her weapon. She fell back onto the dirt and her brow bent as she sought to extract the Lodge-daughter.


    As Hithit bit down on Wander''s nose, a clear glimmer sprung from Petal''s frame and fell into the dirt. A cone of dense rock erupted from the ground that encased the fighters, leaving only their mouths exposed. With Hithit''s jaw restrained, albeit wrapped around her nostrils, Wander began to resist her restraints, which groaned under the sheer pressure of her assault.


    The gap that the blaith had left in Petal''s chest filled. She shivered slightly as the absence fixed. As she did so, Fragile ran up to their prison, pulling at it until his nails broke and his fingers bled.


    "Fragile, run away," Wander said. "Please run away. She will hurt you."


    "Don''t listen to her, River-son," Hithit snarled. "You must take the trick back. You must."


    Light steps shook the air and alerted Fragile to a shadow looming over him. He looked up and saw the luminous form of the Prominens.


    "Fragile," Wander said. "You promised."


    He looked back at her. His eyes were wide open and full of blood.


    He sat in front of the stones and put his face to his knees and put his hands to his eyes. As he pressed up against the rock, the gap in his shoulder broke and he fell forward, crying. He retreated to the stone, and trickles of blood poured from the wound, staining it.


    A clear glimmer sprung from Petal''s frame and snapped into Fragile''s body, a transparent passage of construction that struck through his clothes, swam over his bandages, and thrust itself into the corroded gap that they concealed. His body jolted and he fell forward onto his hands.


    Wander''s eyes flashed. The rock exploded, sending a bombarding spray in every direction and driving instantly at Petal with her hands.


    "W-Wander, stop! S-stop!" Fragile cried.


    She did not. A stone pillar shot up from the ground that she rammed into at full speed. It brought her into darkness.


    -


    Ten-Six found herself in a round space.


    The warrior could see, and feel. It brought her into a sight. She did not know what it was, but only that she wanted for it.


    She walked forward. Her body was dense and pulled down by weights. The sight was full of light, and waiting for her to grab it, but she felt herself began to sink. Even though she stopped approaching, the light continued to pull towards her, and it did not stop.


    Her body turned to liquid, and she lost feeling in her feet, hands and chest. Her throat and lungs filled with salt water. She heard the peal of a bell.


    The light pulled itself toward her chest. She reached out and wrapped her hands around it. Her body filled with the warmth of it. The yearning it felt for her drove her to push more on it, and so she did. The light responded, and exploded into a bright, fiery glare that shined down on her.


    She felt the heat of the fire on the wall. It washed through her body. The water turned to gold, and she passed deep into it. She shut her eyes to take a breath. When she opened them, it was dark again.


    Her head beat heavy before it could muster clarity. She organized her needs for food and water and drove them to the front of her mind.


    Fragile sat by her side, his hands tucked into a curling bundle sat on his knees, eyes drooping. His flared in sympathy when her eyes blared open. The start of her shift sent the Bell slipping up, from around her waist and bove her face, twisting its shape.


    "Wander?" Fragile whispered.


    She reached up a hand and rubbed her eyes. "What happened?"


    "We…" Fragile looked around. "We''re…"


    "We are seen," said the Bell.


    Fragile''s voice caught in his throat as she swung up, leaned to the side and vomited. Dark brown, nearly black muck sprayed the rock.


    She wiped the corners of her mouth and flicked off the gunk. She ripped her waterskin from her hip and poured it down her throat. She vomited again and drank more.


    She replaced her skin and looked around. They were in an ovular room, which could have been scraped out with a massive spoon. Her weapons were set beside her. She looked at the ground, made of a grey sediment that gave way to other strata on their sides and in the ceiling, each of which was various shades of green and brown. When she squeezed it, it revealed a spongy texture. The space was warm and dim, populated by two other shapes: Hithit, who slept against one wall, and the glittering form of Petal, which faced another, shrouded in shadow.


    Wander got to her feet, picked up her Kathan blade and hurled it at the creature. It vanished into thin air upon reaching its skin, and reappeared in its place.


    Hithit blinked awake. Her eyes opened just in time to see Wander javelin Petal and she rushed over to the warrior, leaping on her, slapping her and punching her. Wander was unmoved.


    "You hit the Trickmaker," she roared. "What aim is this? What has affected you?"


    Wander placed a hand between herself and Hithit and pushed her away. Fragile clung to the incensed Lodge-daughter.


    "Please, eldsister," he cried. "She did not aim to hurt it. She did not aim that. Please, do not shake at her."


    "Wind to you, gapman!" she exploded. She turned and struck him. Wander yanked her over and shoved her onto the stone. It deformed to accommodate her body.


    As Hithit began to rise, Wander picked up her blaith and its blade stretched out at her. Hithit sat back and was silent, and Wander replaced her blade. Fragile panted.


    "Be quiet," she said. "Tell me what happened."


    Fragile got to his knees. "After you were thrown down," he said, "Petal brought us here," Fragile said. His eyes peeked around the glittering hideout before them. "We do not remember it. She did not carry us. We just..."


    "This is the Trickmaking Place," Hithit said. She smouldered. "It is like the Lodge told."


    Wander looked toward The Trickmaker. Its form had changed more still since Wander had last seen it. The Prominens'' body had grown in size, such that the tip of her head scraped the ceiling, but it had become also thin, its once broad chest and shoulders wrought now of bright, sloping tubes and wire bundles. Her face and "skin" had been stripped of all indentation. Its texture retained its glossy sheen; the shade it glowed was near but not quite the color of Hithit''s. Looking further, Wander could see the light shift around Petal.


    "Has it talked?"


    "No," Fragile said. "I don''t…" He glanced at Hithit. "I don''t believe so."


    The Lodge-daughter pointed. The Trickmaker mussed a mass in front of it. A snapping and clicking came from the work. "The Trick is being made."


    Wander sat down. "How do we leave?"


    "We will leave when she wants us to," Hithit said.


    "Unless we do not," Wander replied. "Like the rest of your kind."


    Hithit''s gaze coolled and lowered. "Unless we do not."


    -


    Having confiscated the satchel of offerings Wander carried, the Trickmaker worked, huddling in a corner of the cave and performing quick manipulations on its contents that they could not see. Wander and Fragile sat on one side of the cave. Hithit sat on another, watching the creature.


    "Let me see my cut," Wander told him.


    Fragile removed his cloak. Wander lifted up his over and looked at his back. She covered him back up.


    "It''s a Shrill-man," she said.


    Fragile''s gaze turned up at hers. "What''s that?"


    "A kind of brightplague," she said. "It''s very old. Not many have been seen. The Family made response against them, and the Laruns, I believed they were all gone from this place. That''s why I attacked it."


    "Why doesn''t it speak?" Fragile asked. "And… why would it help me?" Is it like Uff?"


    They watched as a swarm of dark shapes nebulated before the Trickmaker, changing into different shapes and mending together, breaking apart, and repeating the process. "Shrillmen never speak," she said. "Not to us. Not to Laruns. The Makarish found a way. But I don''t know how it''s done."


    "If she cannot speak, how did it… Petal…?"


    Wander removed her Kathan blade from her hip and fingered the shards of it, pressuring the range of peaks and valleys that its temper had dissolved into. "You don''t know much less than me. Maybe it grabbed her I, hunted it out from the second place, like a catchcutter and a carcass. Or maybe it is face-speaking. Maybe there is no Petal."


    She looked over at Hithit. "It would please that one."


    Her hands played around her weapon''s hilt. "Even if this was whole, they are very strong, and I am not sure I could hurt it enough to throw it off."


    "They can be hurt?"


    "By a gathering. One hundreds of mine to one of theirs. But it would take ninety-nine and leave the last. The Family found no victories. They suppose He drove them back. But He is gone, or he is silent."


    Fragile clutched his hoofleather bag and stroked it. "How could they have spoken to the Goals?" he asked. "They give things to each other. Shouldn''t there be a word for it?"


    "There is no word," Hithit said.


    They turned to her.


    "It was my birthwoman began Trickmaking," she said. "First the Maker took one from us, and sent a Trick. We did not know how to get more, but it helped us. The Response was hard. For its work, many were kept back from cuts. So she went out again and cut herself, and it gave more. That is all it has ever been. There has been no speaking."


    "You can speak with a face," The Bell hissed. She unwrapped herself from Wander''s face and rolled over between Hithit and the two. "Perhaps this one speaks with a hand or push. Perhaps that fix in the weak thing''s bulk is its word. Perhaps it is saying what it prefers."


    Fragile tilted his head at her.


    "What can you find in it?" Wander asked.


    The Bell looked toward the crouched Trickmaker. "It has much of ours," she said. "But so does a stone."


    "Does it have words?"


    "Maybe," she replied. "Maybe not. I once believed I could find a word in everything."


    Wander looked away, and Fragile looked down at the Bell. "What do you mean, eldsister?" he asked. "Is it not your talent?"


    "My best talent, weak thing. I could see. Not every way, now. There is a hand that can grab it. And there is little more to say."


    "De put some work on her," Wander said. "I have not been able to count it in since then."


    She stood up and addressed the cave wall, placing her hand against it. It deformed under her touch, but resisted after she approached a certain depth. "I''m not sure it matters. Whatever word this one has, I don''t know that it could be heard."


    She looked back at the Fragile and Hithit. "You can rest, if you want. I''ll try to get us out of here."


    -


    Wander went to work attempting to bore a hole in the rock. She removed her shoulderskin and laid out the contents of her vest. She began to pry and strike at the stone in different ways. It resolved into a explosive hammering as she struck the rock with a metal rod. Her great strength made a noise that that shocked apart the air, but otherwise did not produce more than a trickling in the surface of the cave.


    Hithit offered to the Trickmaker. She laid down prostrate on the floor, scraping Goalish words into the rock with a heavy, wedged littlecane she kept at her side. At one point, her blade screeched to a halt. She threw her head up, and she saw the River-Son''s gaze flick away.


    "Spit up your voice, gapman," she said.


    "I''m sorry, eldsister."


    She stood up and towered over the Sixbraid. "I have wondered on your enfeeblement," she said. "This outman has sent out your virtue. You spy on the works of women, and offer no Response when they direct themselves to you. This is gappish work."


    "I am sorry to spy, eldsister," he said.


    "Do you seek to thrust upon me?" she asked. "An eye has an aim. What is yours?"


    Fragile eyes moved quickly. He shut them and kept quiet. She watched him.


    "Your name fits your form," she said. "Did you seek out this fate, gapman? Or was it forced upon you?"


    "W-Wander saved me," Fragile said.


    "I do not believe she did. To be with the rulers looks a better way than this. Is it her title for you? Would you put this in the virtue of your birthwoman? Have you none of her words?"


    Again Fragile did not reply.


    "Give me Response, gapman."


    "I do not have her words, eldsister."


    "She is a carcass, then?"


    Fragile''s teeth bit together. "I d-do not know."


    Hithit spit. "I suppose if your birthman could not help her, he could hardly produce the wall in you."


    Fragile''s eyes began to water. "I said that your birthman is a walless gap, Sixbraid," Hithit continued. "Do you have nothing to offer me for this attack? It would speak a kind that adores heartless ones. Someone who does not adore the rulers. It''s ones like you that have done this to us. It''s ones like you that have put away our hands."


    Hithit pointed to the Larun. "This heart," Hithit said, "this outman, has more heart than you in yours. You are a part of the going. You are the kind that sends out our friends."


    "Go away."


    Wander held the shard of the Kathan blade in her hand. She had stepped in front of Fragile. Hithit laughed. "You, strike at me, Dryman?" Hithit said. "You have cradled me and kept me from rulers. I did not ask for it. Now I should fear a hit from you? Do you seek my smiling?"


    "I have promised to resend a Lodge-daughter," Wander said. "Turn back your kind into its wiser. I did not promise to keep it whole."


    "Wander, please..." Fragile said.


    Hithit looked at the Sixbraid, clinging to the warrior''s arm. He would not look at her. He shook violently.


    Hithit went away and Wander lowered her weapon. The Bell watched.


    -


    Hithit returned to her corner. Fragile remained nearer to Wander than he had before.


    The Lodge-daughter watched the Trickmaker. As she did so there was a great pulling of the muscles in her arms and face. She clenched her fists.


    The Dry-man''s outish creature glided over to her. She recoiled from it. "Outness," she whispered.


    "I am the Bell," the Bell said. "And that is all."


    "I have never seen your kind," Hithit said. "A whip with its own hand."


    "You once spoke brightly of the heart in metal, Lodge-daughter," the Bell exclaimed. "I wish I could change that the path of your word is less adorable than its gap."


    "What do you want?"


    The Bell was quiet. "Wander''s smiling," she said. "But I have come to learn that that is not one part."


    "From me."


    "It is like I said. Wander''s smiling."


    "I cannot make your holder smile. Nor do I wish it."


    "What do you wish?"


    Hithit turned away from the rope and looked back at the Trickmaker. The Bell watched it too.


    "I want this outman to destroy her land," she said. "I want that without reservation. I do not want to lose my family."


    "Wander wanted that once," the Bell replied.


    "What changed?"


    "She came to the Wild."


    Hithit looked over at the warrior, who rumbled softly at Fragile.


    "What does she want now?"


    </a> "I don''t know. I believe there may be a kind in your calls. If there is, she will keep it in. I wish that you would know."


    The Bell glided away.


    -


    Fragile absentmindedly etched a drawing into the cave wall using his littlecane. The Stonehoof''s image was very crude, and it did not look much like anything, but his heart warmed when he had finished the shape of his company. He studied it and moved away after some time, shifting back over to Wander, who had begun to clang and clang and clang away at the the cave wall with her chisel. Hithit returned to her supplication of the Trickmaker, herself etching words on the floor in Goalish.


    Fragile wrapped his hands around his legs and looked up. His eyes widened.


    "Wander," Fragile whispered.


    The blade clanged as her fist beat against it and her head turned. It clattered to the ground, and Hithit glanced up from her offering. The Bell untied herself from Wander''s waist and twisted with their single gaze.


    The Trickmaker sat at the base of Fragile''s sketch. Its body reached out, scorching lines into the rock with extended tents of crystal skein.


    "What is it doing?" Fragile asked.


    "It seeks a way," said the Bell.


    As suddenly as it had arrived, the Shrillman moved away from the wall and back into its space. They assembled around the image. The sketches of the Shrillman''s fire, like its Tricks, were photographic. The Shrillman had iterated upon Fragile''s hoof; its shape and proportions had been retained, but its face and its body were shifted, given additional lines and shades to become distressed and seeing. It opened mouths from many heads, which the Trickmaker had distributed all around its body, into its chest and rear and sliding out into the ground beneath it. All of them dropped spit onto the ground. Lines had been struck all around, producing a landscape and an empty bowl that yawned out before the hoof.


    "What does it mean?" Fragile''s jaw opened when he found the completed image.


    Wander touched her hand to the stone, which was hot. "I don''t know."


    Hithit pointed her finger at the bowl. "What is this?"


    "That''s a lake," Wander said.


    "I do not see water."


    "The dirts and piles are collected in such a way. It is a lake." Wander blinked. "I have seen this before."


    "They turned to her. "You have?"


    "Yes. In Ard Makaris. The land is very dry. There are many dry lakes. They are filled only sometimes, by rivers and rain."


    They looked back at the figure.


    "Its meaning is besides," she said, "as it means, and we have not had that before. So draw something else."


    "I can''t," he said. "It was just… I can''t, really. Can you?"


    "Ih, River-Son." Hithit severed the littlecane from his grip and began to scratch articles into the rock. Its blade was dulled and beaten by the stone.


    Soon, Hithit had established a new set of figures adjacent to the first. Each of them prostrated before a tall figure, with lines coming off of it.


    "What is this?" Wander asked, waving to its radiants.


    "That''s the Maker''s light," she said. "You cannot show light."


    They stepped back from the wall. Soon, the Trickmaker went back to their mural and stretched out again with its body. After it had departed, they moved in to observe.


    The Trickmaker had entered into the figures. Each of them had been given the face of Fragile''s hoof. It had drawn in its light, which crossed into everything, out of the lines that Hithit had made, which now resembled the shadows of the cave. Each of the figures had their own, and the lights passed into one another without any gradient.


    All of Hithit''s worshippers had contoured bodies, limbs, and faces. Echoes of Hithit''s shadows crossed over each as they shined in to one another. The Trickmaker had no shadows.


    "T-that''s-!" Fragile cried out and looked at Wander.


    "You?" she asked.


    "Me?" he looked again. He pointed at her figure. She pointed at his, and his finger dropped.


    Hithit looked at the two of them.


    "Twelve girls," Wander said. "Twelve tricks. We have its words. What is the pathway? What crosses between them?"


    "These are its words," Hithit said. "So we have always had them. The tricks."


    Wander looked at her. "The tricks were changes."


    "Yes."


    She turned her gaze back to the image, and fixed on the Trickmaker''s self-portrait. When she looked more closely, her eye found new detail.


    An indentation, concentrated in the Trickmaker''s abdominal region, and flowing up and down the whole of its figure, bisected the Trickmaker''s portrait. Overlapped beneath it was a weaker rendition of a heavy-cheeked face, and long limbs that stretched apart on the lower half of the Trickmaker''s body.


    "I''ve seen this too," she said.


    Hithit and Fragile followed her gaze. "I cannot see it, Dry Man."


    Wander stood up. She held her hand out to Hithit. The Lodge-daughter handed her the cane.


    The warrior approached The Trickamker. The Bell swam over and ran up her leg, tying herself around Wander''s waist.


    Trickmaker faced away from them. Wander removed the Bell''s rope and dropped her to the ground. She exposed her stomach, and looked down at it.


    A dark black spot lay at the center of Wander''s abdomen. She looked down at it and pressed the knife where Bestplace''s cut had been made. As the metal touched her flesh, the Trickmaker shifted.


    The wound opened. The Trickmaker shrank in size, approaching her with a swagger. With a shock, waves of the Shrillman''s body spread out around the cave, spinning themselves into piles of gold and silver and rotten wood. Fragile jumped up and squeaked as the ground beneath him became solid. Hithit shook and steadied herself and looked at the Trickmaking with raised eyebrows.


    The Trickmaker''s body stretched to its side and formed a lithe, blemishless arm, as the rest of its body unrolled layers of itself into a shape that matched its qualities.


    Wander opened herself. The Trickmaker''s hand moved toward the bloodless incision. As it reached inside Wander''s body, her face remained expressionless. The Trickmaker cried out, a choral noise that included laughing, crying, and screaming.


    Wander wrapped her hand around the Trickmaker''s wrist and pressed the littlecane against it. The joints of it dissolved and the Trickmaker''s hand was severed. It fell inside Wander''s wound.


    "Go c-clean," the Trickmaker said. "I am d-dirty." A pair of lips formed themselves on its face.


    Hithit and Fragile were thrown to the ground and the roof of the cave folded upward, and there was a roaring crash as the gold and silver and loaves of rotten wood rushed back in to the Trickmaker''s shape.


    Sunlight shined in. The Trickmaker stepped away from Wander. The light wrapped around it and formed a shadow.


    The wound in Wander''s torso sealed. The black mark of the Star''s fix was not left, but her skin was instead pale and newborn.


    Wander lowered the littlecane and felt around her stomach to make sure of its integrity. She looked at the Shrillman''s body, and a pair of eyes developed on its face.


    Wander fell to her knees as a piercing pain cut through her skull, which abated. The Shrillman stepped past Wander, toward Fragile, as his companions were incapacitated.


    The Shrillman''s head turned to look at Fragile briefly, gazing on him with deep blue eyes. Long locks of black hair rose up from its scalp and tumbled down its back as it walked out of the cave, into the light.


    Fragile rushed over to Wander and fell down before her. Hithit plodded after him, and continued past the two as she recovered, her arms outstretched, into the corner of the Shrillman''s cave.


    -


    As the end of the second day neared, the Walls of the Pathway shell strapped on their arms beneath the Pathway lodge and looked up at the stars.


    "We handed out our sight for nothing," muttered one.


    "Never again shall we listen to Heartcutter."


    "Never again."


    Wander''s young advocate ran a whetstone across his blade and kept silent.


    They were followed by a procession out toward the edge of the shell, and began to hear a great scream come up from it.


    "What is that?" they muttered among themselves.


    Heartcutter the Wall bumped into the man before him. The crowds of born parted, as did the Walls, as the Dry Man, her Sixbraid helper, a Larun, and the thirteen daughters of the Pathway Lodge cut their way through the shell, up to the house of Tugsheart.


    Fragile''s head twisted at the crowd, where a pair of walls shook their companion. He recognized the man as the one who had enabled Wander''s entrance.


    "He''s still breathing," his friends muttered. "Now we shall listen to Heartscutter. This gapman."


    "A gapman''s cunning."


    Tugsheart, went out from the Lodge and looked down from the mount. On seeing the procession her jaw fell. Wander stopped at the base of the mound, as Tugsheart''s sisters and the crowd of born followed them up to the house of images.


    Hithit looked back at the foreigners. "Aren''t you coming?" she asked Wander.


    "I have what I need," she said. "Go be with your family."


    Hithit gave them another look and then turned away.


    Distantly, into the early hours of morning, sounded the cry, "The Trick is made. The Trick is made. The Virtuous Dryman! The Virtuous Lodge-daughter! The Trick is made!" There was whooping and oaths sputtered and kisses put upon them, so that night they supped once more with Bestplace. Again, a meeter came in to whisper into Bestplace''s ear.


    "The Lodge has come," she whispered to Wander.


    Wander tugged on Fragile''s shoulder. "Come," she said.


    They exited the meeters'' roundseat. Tugsheart stood in the dark, accompanied by the Wall-Woman and three other men with canes. Around them the lights of the Goals still poured prolifically. Men and women danced themselves and each other to exhaustion around the seats and animals were loosened to take part in the jubilation.


    "I''m sorry," Wander said to Tugsheart.


    "How could you say that?" Tugsheart asked.


    "Your birthwoman."


    Tugsheart the Lodge''s brow fell, along with the heads of the walls. "Ih."


    "Was it quiet?"


    She looked up. "It was."


    Wander nodded. Tugsheart folded her hands.


    "I have come to speak," she said. "You have done a great work, offman. A marvelous one. What do you want from us?"


    "I already have it."


    "You received a Trick?"


    "That is not what I mean."


    Tugsheart tilted her head.


    "What I want," she said. "It is behind you."


    Tugsheart and the walls turned around and observed the festivities. They looked back at the warrior.


    "Thank you," Wander said.


    She tugged Fragile on the arm and went back inside the meeters'' roundseat. He followed her.


    -


    In the morning, The Stonehoof and The Stronghoof were brought to the edge of the shell. The first rays of the morning sun began to fall over the Wild. Wander and Fragile rose just as the meeters were retiring to their seat.


    They walked with Bestplace through the sleeping shell, where the Goals lounged about, clutched by each other and leaned into the coals of fire.


    "Did this Maker give you what you needed?" Bestplace asked.


    "I believe it did," Wander replied.


    Arriving at a place where the shoots, seats and pens of Pathway Goal began, they found another pair of travellers seated at their departure point. The Lodge-daughter, flanked by Petal the Prominens, stood.


    "I came to give you my wishes," Hithit said.


    Wander observed her attire. She was dressed in a rough white coldover, and carried at her side a tasselled blade. "You''re not staying?"


    "We are returning to the rounds," Petal said. "We go in search of the Trickmaker."


    She turned to the Prominens. "I believed you would return to Harmony."


    Petal and Hithit looked at each other. "She has asked me to accompany her," Petal said. She stuttered. Her brow was ashen, and her Goalish slow and diminished. "I will never go back to Larunkat."


    "The Maker has offered to us," Hithit replied. "I no longer have the heart to stay shellbound. So we will go and offer to the Maker, and know her as we can."


    Hithit turned her head to Petal. "This heart is a piece of it. One it preferred enough to hold."


    She turned back to Wander. "I want every piece."


    "You are in meeting company," Bestplace said. "You will have our help."


    She nodded at the Dip meeter. The Lodge-daughter turned to Fragile, who looked up at her with slight recoil.


    "River-son," she said.


    "Eldsister?"


    "My throat did not need to strike you," she said. "If I could, I would carry my words back in."


    "I would not," Fragile said. "I adore every word, eldsister. But if you would put them out, then- they can be gone. I am happy to have sun with you."


    She reached out a hand and tentatively ruffled Fragile''s head. Wander raised her eyebrow.


    Hithit raised aloft her weapon and stepped out into the bushes, followed by the Prominens. Soon they were swallowed by the snow and wood.


    "A Meeter-Lodge," Bestplace said, "and her Larun Wall. Meeting what has not been met." She shook her head. "This is the unknown season."


    She turned to Wander and Fragile.


    "There are more eatings inside your pack," she said. "The Strong one is fed and picked." She scratched The Stronghoof''s smooth mane and handed its lead to Wander. It nuzzled against her and Fragile.


    The Stonehoof emerged from the trees. "That one has also eaten," Bestplace said. "But it came and it went. We could not get a hold on it."


    The Stonehoof found its way over to Fragile and put its mouth on its head. Wander itched the Stronghoof''s chin. "What will you do?" she asked. "You and your water-eaters."


    Bestplace looked over at the shell and hill where the Lodge was placed. "I believed that I might move further." She looked back at Wander. "But there is some work that we can do here. Help with this new meeting. Maybe I will see rulers, again. That would be no great problem."


    "Then we will not see you again."


    Bestplace shrugged. "We search for what we need to see. Perhaps, if you travel by night, my eye will find you on your way."


    Wander nodded, and Bestplace flicked her eyes over to Fragile, who was still engrossed with his playmate.


    "River-brother," she said.


    Fragile looked at her and bowed his head. "I hope you will be safe, eldsister," he said.


    She looked over him for too long. "The favors we have," she said, "for the one you help – these are yours, as well. You can count them in. I wish that you would know."


    Fragile''s brow furrowed but he nodded. "Thank you, eldsister."


    "I hope you will be safe, yonbrother."


    Bestplace stepped off, and did not turn back. Wander tugged the Stronghoof forward, and the foreigners returned to the Wild.


    -


    Wander unrolled her guide as the Lodge of the pathway Goals was covered up by the trees and faded into the horizon. She did not look up from it. Fragile scratched The Stonehoof''s snout and held his hands together.


    "How far is The Cane?" he asked.


    "Far," she said. "But he''s coming back." She rolled up the paper and put it away. "And I know where he''s going to be."


    "The Shrillman told you?"


    "In a way, I would say it. It can tell with a face."


    As the sun rose higher, and its growing heat made itself apparent, a silence that they had not known since the first part of the cold produced itself within them, and there was no talking until they next decamped at midday. They stopped in a rosy glade at the edge of a roaring river, where Fragile unpacked some of the meeters'' roots and, recognizing a number of them, placed them in one of Wander''s pots that he hung over a fire she had built. She kept it cool, and he stirred slowly, three breaths per spin. The noise of the stream was great, and Wander watched the light grip he kept on the stir, pick up the nearly weightless gutcutter plants with two hands, and yelp when the water jumped up and he burned himself. She dug a hole next to the fire.


    She got out bowls and she ate his stew. Fragile looked down into his bowl, and his eyes flicked between it and the hole.


    Wander looked at him after he had failed to deposit the food after the sun had shifted a degree. "What''s wrong?" she asked.


    His reverie was broken and he looked up at her. "Ih – nothing."


    "You look hungry.


    "I-I am."


    "Want something else?"


    "I-I d-don''t-"


    "There''s more they gave."


    "I j-just-"


    "The bags are full," she said. She began to stand up. "There''s some roothead, some howl, some-"


    "I cannot hear the rulers," he cried.


    Wander sat down.


    He put aside his bowl and put his hands in his lap. "That is why I spied on eldsister. In the cave. I wish I could be like her… but I can''t." He rubbed an eye. "Once, I knew that the rulers were in their house. I knew that I would see my birthmen there. I do not feel that way anymore. I am filled with shaking." He looked up at her. "How can one shake at one''s ruler? They are gone. They have done nothing to me. They ask nothing from me. All there is is their way. I do not know what I expect from them. I have lost my birthmen. Hithit believed that her whole table had gone away, that they were lost. She did not falter in her obligations. What is the right in an offering from someone who cannot sustain a little part of her problem? The whole rulersland is going away. You have said it. I believe you."


    He wiped his nose and brushed water from his cheek. "I''m sorry."


    Wander put her bowl down. She rested her arms on her knees. Then she picked her bowl up, and her gloves, and moved over to the hole.


    He watched as he dumped her entire meal into the hole. "Wander!"


    She took her stir and scratched out the last parts of it inside. "Could you come here?" she asked.


    He put down his bowl and ran over to her.


    She gestured to the ground. "Sit down." He did.


    She put on her gloves. Her fingertips poked out at the ends, so she took his hand in her left palm and raised his forefinger to her lips. She used it to write a word in the snow. After that, she used her right hand to brush over the hole.


    "I can hear them," she said.


    She looked down at him, as she heard his eyes begin to flow. They were soaking and many, but he was smiling. "I''m sorry," he said. "It is n-not – it is different."


    "What is?"


    He wiped his tears and showed her. "This," he said.


    She nodded. They returned to the fire and he ate.


    As he chewed through his food, Wander looked out over the water. She scratched the back of her neck. The Bell unlooped herself from around her waist and trailed into the bush.


    "I know your name," Wander said.


    Fragile stopped chewing. He gulped. "My n-name?"


    "Yes. Your first name. Before all this. Key."


    "You mean- from the start?"


    She looked at him. Key looked away. "Ih. Are you angry?"


    "I was going to ask you that."


    His eyes widened. "N-no. Why would I- I''m not angry."


    "Why did you change it?"


    Fragile put his bowl down. He held his arm. "I''m not sure. It''s been so long since then."


    "It has."


    He looked at the river too. "I had two names then," he said. "Key was one. Fragile was the other."


    "You didn''t choose it?"


    He shook his head. "I- I was Key when I was good. But sometimes I was Fragile. That was what they said. All liked it best. The ones who I adored. This way, I can give it to them."


    "I see." Her tone was light. He imagined a tenderness in it and his brow raised.


    "Is it wrong?" he asked.


    She pushed up her hat. "No," she said. "But you are what you are. Not what they say."


    He was silent. He concealed his face.


    Wander looked down at him. She laid a hand on his shoulder. "Fragile?"


    "I…" She could not make out his expression, which he guarded with a turn. "I can hear what you have said. About sun."


    "Sun?''


    "Y-yes. The way it t-tumbles you."


    Her grip pulsed very slightly. Her strength magnified the difference, and Fragile flinched.


    "I have known smiling since I named myself this way," he said. "They did not seek me when they said, but… it feels like me." He uncovered his face, turned toward her, and smiled. "I have never wanted to be hard, like stone. I took it for what they said. But I kept it for what I like."


    She released him. The corners of her mouth flared up for a moment, before it turned down again. The sun was uncovered by a cloud and shot them up with rays; she adjusted her hat to shield her eyes. Fragile felt his mouth and his eyes widened. He moved over to her, touched his face to her arm, twice, and withdrew. Her arm reached out to hold his.


    "Have you ever fire-brewed before?" she asked.


    He sat down next to her and crossed his legs. "''Fire-brewed''?"


    "It is something I have seen written about your kind," she said. She crinkled a finger toward her mouth. "The Shamins do not do it. Nor the Laruns. But Goals do, and do Makars."


    Fragile''s eyes widened. He looked into the fire. "I have done that once," he said. "Well – twice." He looked at her. "I mean… once- before-"


    "I can hear it."


    "I did not know what it meant… I still don''t."


    "I was told that it was common," she said.


    "I don''t know," Fragile said. "It may be, elsewhere."


    She was silent. Fragile felt cold.


    "If you are without many tries," she said. "That makes us two. Once we are parted, and you do it with someone else, you may like to squeeze your lips together. Most don''t only push them on each other."


    Fragile blushed. "Would you… could you… show me?"


    She looked down at him again. She turned so that they were facing each other.


    "Everyone does it differently," she said. "Each one is different."


    "Each one?"


    "Each brewing." She pushed his cheek with her covered knuckle, and recoiled. His face grew red. "A birthwoman, or a friend, would do it here," she said.


    She waved at his nose and then his forehead. "Here. Here."


    "I had no birthwoman," Fragile said.


    "And mine was not with me."


    She waited for a moment. "Other people do it on the lips," she said, scrubbing around her own. "Friends do that sometimes."


    "And the other ones?"


    "They produce a house."


    He grew flustered. "Is that why they call it house-making?"


    "In a way. It has a longer reason."


    Fragile lowered his gaze. "Is it like… when I came back?"


    "Yes."


    He looked at her. Wander felt a shaking rise up in her breast. It was something different. The hands that approached her often felt like they might tear her apart. In this case, her hands were approaching him. The peoples of her spoke to one another. The many of it felt angry.


    Her gloves had been shot open by the cliffs, so she could not avoid touching him. It helped that his coldover was very thick.


    She took him by the waist. The wave of revulsion passed into her I, and it did not stop. She leaned down and stopped a moment before she took his mouth. Their noses brushed against each other. She went closer.


    Before it could push her away, there was more found in her I. The world enjoined by the work of color, and a humming buzzed her ears. Wander held his body with hers, and Fragile pressed into her. His heartbeat slowed down and matched hers. His body filled with her heat and began to produce more. They were never together at once, and one always drew back, and moved forward again, closing and reopening the distance in their plot. They had removed themselves from the face of planet and they wound up into a form by its immanence.


    She began to hear the crackle of fire, and the peal of a bell. She began to remember her skin crawling and jumping out of her body, but until it was released, its tint did not depart.


    And then it did. Wander shoved Fragile back. She stood up and walked away and put some chew in her mouth. A moment passed.


    "That''s what its like," she said.


    "I s-see."


    Fragile''s eyes opened up. Her breath was heavy. She could hear his quicken and shake.


    She could feel his gaze on her. "T-thank you," he said. "I will- I will go c-clean. I am d-dirty."


    He went away from the fire, and down to the river.


    <hr>


    A wing flew over the Wild country. It was soft, fit easily in the palm of one''s hand, and it had golden-orange plumage that was tugged out by the air it blistered through. A wooden tube hitched to its back wriggled and rattled as it threw itself around, over the barrens and peaks and shifting black canopies of Middle Goal.


    The barrens and peaks gave way to walls, that rose up from the ground around its aim. The walls sprouted a fire-light, set against mirrors, which shined out a beam that shined around the territory, Trenches formed in the ground beneath the walls, directing water. The walls surrounded blocks and the blocks towers hoisted towers that decorated a rod of gold. An arrow-and-bone, moulded out of the same metal and fused to it, saw gusts run through the gaps in its hollow design. The wing was blown off course by this gale and was dashed against the arrow before it could dive to safety. It fell, and the walls swallowed up the wing.


    A lone roothead grazed on snow-covered grasses beyond the water of the walls. It looked up and saw the mark. Water dripped from the spines of thorntrees, tapping wet against the rocks at its base. A howl stepped through it, looked up, and it saw the arrow too.


    A boot crushed the snow. It was followed by a second and a third that caused the heads of the howl and roothead to snap towards it. When a fourth bootprint was made, the howl loped into the dark, and the roothead glided out of sight as the lead man shoved a stick and its fire forward through the thorntrees.


    He turned back. The fire placed vertical shadows between the spines of his mask and cowl. A team of boys followed in his wake, carrying the branch-strapped litter of their commander, with fresh bindings to the jaw. One of them buckled from the weight, and they gasped.


    "G-get up," the Cane said through his mask. "I am forbidden from h-his throat. N-not – y-yours."


    "Yes, kontor."


    "Yes, kontor."


    They thrust and cut and burnt their way through the Wild. They crossed over the waters and grew the walls in their eye until they reached an arch where the stone faltered and found hinges.


    De''s club clanked against the rock of the path they walked. He clenched its handle and tapped the ground twice, sending a clack shooting up atop the arch, where a pair of bryst-clad nivmen turned to gaze down at them.


    "Who are you?" one of them, a Freeman, boomed. "Covered one! Remove that shade of yours, or you will be shot down!"


    De lifted a hand, tore off his hood and removed his mask. The head of the Larun disappeared. The doors, which were twice as tall as any in their company, creaked open. They were met by a man in a gold-lined bryst, whose neck and chin were striped with cuts of ivory, and was covered by a horde of Freemen. They crowded Joyborn and his seeds, divorced them from the company of De, and carted them inside with clamor and shouting.


    The gilded man stepped forward. "You are Teller''s man?" he questsaid.


    De replaced his mask. "I am h-his."


    The redoubt''s kontor reached into a pocket at his breast and extracted a small wooden tube from it. "This arrived for you in the last mark. Can you read?"


    "N-no."


    The noise of the extracted Partless'' reception faded as the kontor cracked open the tube. He shivered and exhaled, sending out a gout of vapor, and wrapped his bryst closer to his body before he could get it loose. De took a step back.


    A folded paper with a golden seal shook free of the binding. The kontor cleared his throat.


    "The paper says it," he began. "''Respect of Goodpoint De, Mark Teller 20/13 Girdan: Turn described wrong. Wingpapers confirm: no Coster Blade present in South Goal. Described Point impossible.''"


    De''s eyes widened. His grip tightened on his cane, crushing its handle with a crack that shook his reader. He continued.


    "''D-described condition of Point impossible. Return and resume tell. Attack the Dry Man. All for the Firm, Teller Anointed, Firstpoint of the Partition."


    He lowered the paper. His hands shook.


    "The paper s-says it," the kontor said. He stepped back. "Kontor."


    De''s cane fell to the ground with a clatter and the gilded man flinched. The Cane had stopped shaking.


    "Bring me a tithe, please," said the Cane.


    "Yes, kontor. I will form a gathering."


    "I don''t want a gathering," said the Cane. "I want a tithe. Please, bring me a tithe."


    The Kontor gave a stuttering nod and stepped back into the Larun fortress. De did not move further. He heard laughter.


    The Dry Man is a woman, it was whispered. The Dry Man carries two canes. Hand of fire, eyes of water. The Dry Man is a woman, it was shrieked. The Dry Man is a kinder one. The Dry Man adores his kind.


    Bring us a tithe, it was shrieked. Bring us a tithe. A tithe to it!


    A tithe to his soundest murder!