Watch me, Sett of Highest Space!


    Watch me, Sett of Owed Favors!


    Watch me, feurkun Sett: he sees nothing, hears nothing, knows nothing!


    It is my plea: Watch me, listen to me, know about me, your most humble overseer!


    Watch my passing – my passing toward screams – my path in to the cry of these rebel noisemakers. Watch, and see:


    Tonight, the Dry Man will be destroyed.


    The Goals speak of her, Fir-Handed Woman, with hushed words and little breath. She is a tasty question to starving beasts. They believe her capacity is limitless, her invention unthrowable. But my eye sees true, all, and plainly.


    For a long cold, Sett, your sons have run over this country of Goal. Your weapons and your groups of hangmen have gone well into their net of houses. There, they have found breathers, found them too in woods, and taken them away from their creators, and from bright suns of feeling and reproducing. Your sons have taken them back, and they have put in flags and towers and shouted them into the trees, and seen themselves as men in it.


    This has been the work of the knife-men of the country of Larunkat. It has been the work of the knife-men of the country of Josmee. It has been the work of the knife-men of the country of Lefthanded Rules. Now it is the work of me, and my First Point – the point that tells, that is received, and placed in view before all others. And it is the work of his First Point – the Point that tells, that is received, and placed in view before all others. And it is the work of Teller''s First Point – the point that tells, that is received, and placed in view before all others.


    The order of points is the foundation of a country. The foundation of a country is where its child is built. Without the order, there is not foundation. Without foundation, there is not a country. Without a country, there shall be no child. So is Goal. This land of rulers enjoys no rules.


    All is received from you, feurkun nothing. It is all received from you, subordinate seer. I create you with my attentions, as the Laruns do – for the Laruns know your power, as do I.


    The creator of ones is the creator of laws.


    For a long cold, Sett Who Sees Nothing, I have waited for your sons to do the work of this battle. To place my points in these pointless positions. But that has not been accomplished. And this feurkun kind, which has no walls, has not yet been vanished.


    If I am to let you say, you would speak: "Ha, creating one – you hunger for the pain of children! You would destroy them, and cast them into a lightless pit! What problem is pain, of one or the other?" And I can answer what you cannot ask.


    The Firstpoint is the creator of laws. The Firstpoint is a man, feurkun nothing. The men of these points search for a woman; they search for a creature they will wound. The man is a noise-searching kind. The man is a noise-pricing kind. I am the creator of ones, and all price is mine. I am the creator of laws, and so I am a man.


    What takes, takes from the lawman. The lawman has the right.


    The creator of laws is a lawman. So the Dry Man will be destroyed.


    The Dry Man will be destroyed. This country shall know her vacancy. This country shall receive my points.


    I am the first need, feurkun nothing. Without these noises, there is an end to myself. There is the one, and there is his retinue. There is the pierce: one is lowered, and one is risen.


    The order of points is the foundation of a country. The foundation of a country is a foundation of ones.


    This one, De – my Firstpoint. If I am to let you say, you would speak: "Ha, creating one – you speak of your eminence, you firstness, but you offer to one, and say he precedes you! What work is this, which keeps you there?"


    I am a creator, feurkun nothing. The knowing produces my creation. The knowing produces my cuts. A high point would possess a lower one, because he knows it is not his orders which grant him stature. Because I am the highest, I have chosen the lowest kind.


    A blind man who can see. A deaf man who can hear. A heartless man who has found someone to adore. De: the Freeman. De: The Cane of Larunkat. The Terror of Ten Thousand Free Men!


    The wit of it – he is erased! And the erase of my Point brings me over him.


    We arrive now at the foreigners, Sett Who Sees Nothing. The ones of common talk.


    I feel you, Fragile. I will have you, Key. I will have you, noisemaking man.


    It is never well to see a body that has lost his laws. With your consort, I can see the breadth of this fall, the trembling that has carried you to it. Your drawn straw can represent this Pointless condition. You are so unsteady that even your nature is lost to you. You seek no eating, but seek a mouth – even if it should be your own! A perfect woman. There is no end to my feeling for you, strange Key. Take this calm – I shall bring you the laws you seek. And the mouth.


    When I touch you, you shall know your birthman.


    I feel you, Bell. I feel you, noisy woman.


    How I have hungered for your word! That the sightnight of a frightened little girl could uncover such a sprawling force, brings me questions. You have companied a breather into a noiseless, sunless beast. This is the least of it; you have carried her from my sea and my sands into my eye! But I do not say that this is your wrong to hold. You do not even know your nature, or your name. I am the cutter of your mould. I can tell them to you. I look forward to creating you myself.


    When you touch me, you shall know your lawsman.


    Then, there is our aim.


    I feel you, Wander.


    I feel you, Ten-Six. I feel you, Fire-Handed Woman. I feel you, beast.


    The thirst of my blade for your voice – this is not my whole feeling. The aberration in your sightnight is the aberration in you. In vain have you made to throw off your noisemaking nature. You have chained in metal and dust, and a body that can dig lightless pits. Pits of your creation; pits of your achievement:


    In the Couth of Bigeyes. A beast hunted strong men. Your strength prevailed.


    In the stabs of Eighty. Their coins hunted weak men. Your strength prevailed.


    In the Couth of Firmen. Your chants hunted all men. Your strength still prevailed.


    And you have brought me in to a many pitted land, and turn this strength on De. As with your company – I do price you! I do praise you!


    But The Cane is my possession. I grip his title by my teeth. And when you touch him, you shall know your lawsman.


    So watch me, Sett of High Space. Watch where I shall find them, and where I shall look. Can you find it first, knows-nothing? Even you should see it quick.


    There is only one of all. Where was the man born, sees-nothing?


    Where was the song written, hears-nothing?


    Where was his body wrought?


    In a root.


    <hr>


    Once upon a time in Goal.


    For fifteen nights, the foreigners travelled away from the Pathway shell, and camped atop a ridge beside a lake. The rustling that enveloped their settlement, coming as he departed his sleep-sack, woke up Wander. Her eyes hung open and faced up and unblinking as she listened to Fragile fumble into the bushes. It was soon passed over, and at a point much earlier than it had been previously.


    She waited until the day had begun. When Fragile''s eyes opened and found the morning glare and its glint upon the snow and ice, he found her sitting on a rock, looking down at her hand. She twisted it around and the light played on the large licks of scarring that wrapped around her palm.


    The Sixbraid moved about and wrapped up the firewood, tied it to The Stronghoof, and fed it and watered it. He drew a stone across her blaith, her last whole weapon. When he went to her Kathan blade, he found it shattered in half, as it had been days prior, and he drew the stone over the sloping, many-pointed edge that it now possessed.


    Wander felt a pair of eyes on her and looked over at Fragile. His face changed, and he looked down.


    The lake was gone, and they ascended from the ridge into a windy meadow. Am rose up into a batch of clouds, and then he and his warriors pushed back the air and placed Goal between comfort and cool. The layer of snow that had fallen in the night was thin, and it dissolved wetly beneath their feet. Heavy clouds sat further in front of them, plating the sky, and a breeze swept through Wander''s hair. She lifted up her star papers and reviewed them against heaven as they walked.


    Fragile stumbled. She looked at him. His face changed when her gaze struck him. His back straightened and he drew his shoulders inward. He took greater care with his steps.


    "What''s wrong?" she asked. He looked up at her.


    "You always say nothing," Wander said. "You can tell me."


    "Okay." He clung to his hoofleather bag. "Okay."


    She could hear his stomach settle.


    "It is just my strings," he said. "My bata''s strings."


    "The strum you used to carry?"


    He nodded. "I wanted to learn how to use it. So you could hear a good sound."


    "Where we''re going, there are thousands like it," she said. "They''re made for gifts. There are Goals in Herdetopp, so there will be some like yours for certain. I''ll get you a new one."


    He blinked at her. He spoke quietly and his voice still wavered. "Thank you, Wander."


    "What is it?"


    He shut his eyes and opened them. "N-nothing," he insisted. He blinked tears from his eyes and shook his head. "What was the Trickmaker''s face?" he shot in. "Did it show you something hidden?"


    Wander heard his nothing and looked down at the tears in his eyes and his shivering before she answered.


    "It showed me a shell," Wander said. "It put it in my eye. The houses are all burnt. There''s a ring of poles, wood-shorn. A Larun order-stone. There''s wings flying overhead. And beyond those were stars."


    "That''s where De is?"


    "I believed that he was, when I could see it. But I didn’t see him."


    "Ih."


    "Don''t worry about what I''ve heard," she said. "You don''t need strings to make a sound. The sound of you is good, when it shows up."


    He blushed.


    -


    From the plates in the distance unfolded a flashing white tide, which blocked out the light, and thrusted toward them. A hissing wind started, and metal found the air.


    "What''s that?" Fragile asked, crying out at the squall.


    Wander did not reply. Being was in rupture!


    This metal found the air, and fire inflated it. Thunder boomed around the Peaks. Every god-shaped massive that had chased and beat them across the East of Goal had come back as friends to jubilate their exit. The mountains roared laughter and let down their stones in a hammering rush that split the filament. Black speared its way past the stars and brought wind to them. They walked with it for a while, before it began to pour.


    The Stonehoof guarded Fragile. The snow assembled as a rapids whipping that saw him leap onto her and cling her neck as she tread easily through the gusts. A silent flash linked a wedge of soil and the infinite beyond the mountains, somewhere after the end. Wander did not turn to watch it. The snow ravaged them, the wind roared, and the sky went away.


    They pressed through a thin, deadly wood. One half of each tree was covered by frost; the other half bowed to the storm, and the foreigners crept forward. The Bell wound her rope-form around Fragile''s back and the Stonehoof''s belly.


    Wander''s eyes searched the forest for a path, and found her every faculty foiled. There was plenty of light and no hot, so everything became nothing. And at once, a whining pitch shrieked itself into her ears. White invaded definition, and as her eyes went back into the world, they were relieved to see a color. It was a thicktree hurtling into view and volume.


    The tree tumbled toward the group, with fire heaped up at its exploded base. Wander sent the animals and Fragile sailing through the snow and it landed on her back, driving her into the ground. The Bell snapped off of Fragile and the two hopped off the grounded Stonehoof back toward the warrior.


    Fragile crossed through the snowblinds on all fours, keeping his head down, and his skull bumped into the wood. He followed it and found the smooth, shredded fabric of her shoulderskin pinned beneath the trunk, its ruin roaring smoke. Some flames remained that the wind quickly drowned.


    Wander placed her hands on the snow and pushed into it, submerging her elbows and grabbing the frozen soil there. The wood rose slowly, enough for her to bring up her leg. She threw it out, placed her hands beneath the trunk, and dropped it. It collapsed with a boom that split Fragile''s ears and diminished the sound of the gale.


    She pulled Fragile back over to The Stonehoof, threw him back over it, walked forward and stumbled. They continued.


    The trees peeled back. They walked further through the storm.


    They became surrounded by bulbous waves in the froth, made indistinct from the shapes in a shut eye by the twitch and waver of the snow before they were immediately available and Wander could reach out her hand and touch the wood in their walls. She dragged her group between their nooks, to a place where the wind and snow drifted out, and all set themselves down. Fragile descended The Stonehoof and sat, and The Stronghoof sat, and they clumped together into a nest and hid there. Wander wrapped her arms around them.


    Things would split apart forever, until the storm sealed up.


    -


    </a> The storm sealed up.


    </a> Snow bound itself to Fragile and the animals where it did not to Wander. They were entwined such that her shifting disturbed it, and slid away from them in blocks and sheets.


    </a> She stood up, clutched her back, and went out from their nook. The sun had not yet risen, so it was dark. She found the shapes of the shell by a white-orange glow that the rim of everything sprayed the distance with.


    </a> She righted herself, roused Fragile and the animals and they walked into the shell. Wander kept her blaith in its sheath, off her back and in her hand.


    </a> All of the shell''s dwellings had been caught in a fire. The soil was fertile and, discovering it with her bootprints, Wander saw the stems of frozen flowers and bones picking up from it, crushed by the cold. The more they passed, the more of a desert it became.


    </a> "It is like the digging ones," Fragile said. "The Threeheads?"


    </a> "Yes," she said. "But the wood in their seats was younger than this."


    </a> The geography of the shell lost cohesion. There were spots where the dwellings split apart and gave way to forest. They found a roundseat that had been bitten away and eaten up by a stream of trees. The map Wander was producing of the place did not conform to any system, and it was clear that chunks had once been present which were no longer.


    </a> "Bell," Wander said, turning to The Stronghoof.


    </a> The ends of the Bell''s rope popped up from her saddlebag. "Joyous one."


    </a> "Tie him to your mount."


    </a> Fragile''s eyes widened. The Bell swam over The Stronghoof''s head and reached out a strand toward Fragile.


    </a> "De is quick," Wander said. "He can beat me first if he takes you away."


    </a> Fragile crinkled his brow and nodded. He gave his hand to the Bell, who tied him up and yanked him close to The Stronghoof. It complained.


    </a> They continued to parse the roundseats and the terrain which rose and fell again. "Is that the face you saw?" Fragile asked.


    </a> She looked where he was pointing. An open plain, scraped out by metal, was the only fully intact parcel of the shell, surrounded by other chopped up and ruining mounds that were once whole. Eight columns of wood, cracked and marked with ash, sat around the center, where there was a monolith.


    </a> They started toward the brushless spot, and Wander approached the largest of the mounds. Its exterior, where there were many wood surfaces, had been burnt up completely. Many of the other roundseats had only decayed or seen swathes of removal. Its bulk was such that it was still much larger than the others despite its damage. It offered a series of high vantage points.


    </a> "Get on my back," Wander said.


    </a> Fragile looked up at her. The Bell untied Fragile. She knelt down and he wrapped his arms around her neck. When she stood, the feeling in her shoulders heated, and there was fire in her stomach.


    </a> "Wander?" Fragile whispered.


    </a> She moved. The Kathan blade left her belt and pierced the Lodge''s wood. She drove up a hand and pulled them onto a ledge.


    </a> As she navigated to its tip, Wander did not touch him, so Fragile''s legs flopped around in the air. Once they reached a high dome of the Lodge, she knelt again, and he scrambled down to his hands and knees.


    </a> They found the entire country there. A trail of summits marked the day''s distant, gilding rise with spots of white and brown and black. One appeared a bowl. The sun arrived at that moment and light spilled over the edge, onto their brows and across a group of wings that circled overhead. A gust of wind rose and their coats rose and rippled.


    </a> Fragile craned his neck up at her.


    </a> "This is the answer," she said.


    </a> -


    </a> They hitched The Stronghoof to one of the columns. They came across a roundseat beside the shell''s Lodge, which was not as destroyed. It had falling walls, and the wood had rotted, but there was a whole interior. Wander drew her blaith and they went inside.


    </a> It was dark and cold. The Hesigns that covered Wander''s weapon gleamed more brightly there, and she held it up. Fragile blinked, and found the view of a stone oven sat in the far corner.


    </a> There was only one room. The floor was covered with a rug and a wooden platform. Bowls lay around snapped and splashed, their frames torn. Stone hacks and smoothers bound with twine mixed around with cracked blue pots and jars.


    </a> Approaching the far wall, they became faced with Goalish writing.


    </a> It was extensive. It stretched over the whole face of the end, wrapping around and under, chipped out in furling increments with a small edge.


    </a> "Can you read it?" Fragile asked Wander.


    </a> "It looks like an offering."


    </a> "They were speaking to the soil ruler," Fragile said. "The names of these hearts. One is called ''rider.'' Another is called ‘greatgreat''. That one was called ‘little root''."


    </a> Wander pointed. "There?"


    </a> He nodded.


    </a> "What is that mark?"


    </a> "It says their days. They were children."


    </a> Wander felt his voice tremor. "What is it?"


    </a> "I cannot see it," he said. "They were a strange knot. Or they were very upset. It is not really an offering. The words are attacking."


    </a> Wander turned her gaze around. Fragile turned his elsewhere, and there was a clattering as his foot knocked over a piece of spindling debris. He took it up and looked at it.


    </a> It was a statuette of a young figure. It had been produced from dark metal that had been melted and fused together. He watched the light play on it, and he put it in his bag. He walked over to a corner by the entrance to the seat, looked at the angle of it and turned himself. He sat down.


    </a> The roundseat draped in. There was a familiar quality to the place, and he felt like he could read it. The ice blew in.


    </a> "Fragile."


    </a> He looked up. Wander had sheathed her blaith.


    </a> "Let''s go," she said. "There''s nobody here."


    </a> He did not look back as they gave it exit.


    </a> -


    </a> They pressed through the rest of the shell. Past the Lodge, where there was a fuller terminus for the seats, they met a collapsed and rotted platform of wood. The coils of rope on it and crooked mounts had been worn down to nubs by the wind. Its boards had been chewed through by bugs and eaten at and blackened by fire, and the sun had drank it, and the storm clouds had come and given rain to it that had exploded in night and winter. It had a frozen body, and it had fallen apart.


    </a> There was a stone next to the platform and they moved closer to it. It was marked with writing in Sprak.


    </a> 2 THIS PLACE HAS NO PAST 2


    </a> 5 NO MAN OR WOMAN EVER BREATHED HERE 5


    </a> 2 NO WORDS WERE COMPOSED OR SPOKEN 2


    </a> 3 NO SEEDS WERE LAID OR GROWN 3


    </a> 5 THE SOIL IS EMPTY 5


    </a> IT IS RIGHT


    "What does it say?" Fragile asked Wander.


    She thought about lying to him again, and she spoke. "It is what the Laruns lay down if they cut apart everyone," she said. "The words are meant to scare you."


    Fragile shivered. "They cut apart everyone?"


    "Sometimes they take small ones. When they could still make Freemen, they made some that way. And the making cuts too."


    -


    They returned to the seats where they had sheltered.


    </a> The day was still young and the sun made that clear. Clouds flashed silence over the summits, where they hung with expanding weight that made their step implausible. Wander still built a fire, for the cold, and for work. She set down the remains of her Kathan blade in the flames to heat, and she took out her mirror and a brush. It was hard to reach around for the injuries on her back.


    </a> "Have we come too late?" Fragile asked.


    </a> Wander angled the mirror so that she could see the damage. She stretched to brush the grime and splinters from her skin. "Maybe," she said. "I''m not sure. He knows where we are."


    </a> "He does?"This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    </a> "He can touch us," she said. "He can touch the Bell. He knows the way."


    </a> Fragile fidgeted. "Does he remember you?"


    </a> "He did not before. He has sent messages. Once he is told about me, he may do so."


    </a> She looked over at Fragile, who was nestled with The Stonehoof. His lip quivered, and his gaze shook at the ground.


    </a> "Were you really a fireworker?" she asked.


    </a> He pushed himself up and blinked at her.


    </a> She adjusted the mirror in the light and looked into it. The flames lapped against it and made a sharp white beam. "A fire tender," she said. "A Goalish water-man. They wrap broken skin. They burn wounds. They cut off little hearts. You said a word like that."


    </a> "I do not remember," Fragile said.


    </a> "So you were not?"


    </a> Fragile rubbed his fingers. "My bata was," he said. "He told me some things. But I am not in his way."


    </a> "Can you recall them?"


    </a> He nodded.


    </a> "Help me with this."


    </a> He skittered over to her. She turned her back to him and handed him the brush.


    </a> "Move out the soil from the marks," she said. "And the wood."


    </a> The brush wavered over her skin, and Fragile applied it lightly. She made no movement, and he pushed no more deeply.


    </a> "This can''t hurt me," she said. "Get it out." So he did. And he shoved away the coat of dust and grit that had embedded itself in her body.


    </a> The movements entered Fragile. The fire felt warm. The mirror reflected its golden color, which seemed to grow brighter with each swab.


    </a> She handed him a corked bottle of fluid.


    </a> "Spread that where there''s openings," she said.


    </a> When Fragile looked inside, he was met by the smell of salt.


    </a> "Is this what you put on me?" he asked.


    </a> "No," she said. "It''s the water of a crushed plant. The one I gave you shuts an eye. This one opens it."


    </a> "It will?"


    </a> "It makes your heart move faster."


    </a> He poured it in.


    </a> "Now take the blade."


    </a> Fragile removed the ruins of Wander''s Kathan blade, which had grown red hot. It blew off wires of stumbling air as it departed and the metal glowed gold in the light.


    </a> "Do you know what to do?" she asked him.


    </a> Fragile did. Her skin exploded with vapors that made him lightheaded and his eyelids flutter. The wound began to burn, and Fragile looked at Wander''s head. It did not shift or make a sound. His eyes kept wide as he held it, and he did not hear her voice.


    </a> "You can put it back," she said. He retracted the brand.


    </a> "Hand me that cloth. Pass it around."


    </a> She began to bandage herself. He threaded the fabric over her cuts, underneath her arms.


    </a> "I believed that you did not need this help," Fragile said.


    </a> She knotted the fabric. "Eating can cover me. But I am going to a fight. This Cane is stronger than I am. I may hurt more than I would otherwise. I do not wish to be thrown down."


    </a> She stood up and over him, casting a shadow. She raised her arm and lowered it, and turned to Fragile.


    </a> "You held it for too long," she said. "My movers are stiff."


    </a> His eyes widened. "I- I did?"


    </a> "Yes."


    </a> "I''m sorry."


    </a> "It is not a wrong," she said. "I want my limits. If you do this again, you can do it right." She knelt down and waved her hand. "Turn around."


    </a> He reversed himself.


    </a> Wander slipped on her thick leather gloves. Her fingers poked through the ends, torn loose during her first encounter with The Trickmaker.


    </a> Wander gently lifted the upover that concealed his back. Her hands hovered over his skin without touching it.


    </a> "Is something wrong?" Fragile asked.


    </a> "I need you to move your hair."


    </a> The thick black mass of it swamped her hand, and it concealed the part of him she needed. His hands reached back and tugged it forward, until it hung over Fragile''s head and sank down to his knees.


    </a> She looked. "Nothing is wrong," she said. "And it concerns me. We still do not know why The Trickmaker changed you."


    </a> She lowered his upover. He reversed himself again and folded his hair back. Once it was neat, he put his hands on his feet. "She did it as I was hurt," Fragile said. "I believed she was kind."


    </a> "Maybe. I did not feel that she had that word."


    </a> Fragile rubbed his arm. Wander sat back in her place, where her blaith and belt lay. She took to sharpening her weapon and dripping residue over it. The white jumped to the shapes on its blade and produced a glow that mixed with the fire on both their faces.


    </a> He rubbed his arm. "H-how much stronger is he?" he asked. "De."


    </a> "A little. He can move more quickly. And he has help that others don''t."


    </a> "You can throw him down."


    </a> "I believe so."


    </a> She looked down and ground the blaith further.


    </a> "We fought another star together," she said. "The star threw him and not me. But I do not know if he has changed, how he was or what he might have brought out if I was somewhere else. And he can move more quickly."


    </a> She looked up and saw Fragile''s eyes watering. She stopped sharpening. "What is it?" she asked.


    </a> He rubbed his eyes and sat up. "I''m sorry," he said. "I''m tired."


    </a> "It''s early."


    </a> He squirmed.


    </a> "Have I not said that it is your smiles I want?" she asked.


    Fragile nodded.


    </a> "Then what is this?"


    </a> "I am not in the spot where I should say," he said. "I am not the fighter. You know what are your needs."


    </a> She reached out and used a covered knuckle to wipe a tear from his cheek.


    </a> "What is this?" she asked.


    </a> Fragile looked up at her. "We are two."


    </a> He rubbed together his thumbs. "We are two," he repeated. "I believe there are many twos. Your cut is your cut; my fall is my own."


    </a> He paused. "But you speak as though you may fall."


    </a> She did not reply.


    </a> "If you go into this," he said, "and you want my smiles- well- my smile- the path it walks… it is you. You are why they come. If you are not here, I feel they would get lost. There would be no road."


    </a> "I know."


    </a> She rubbed a bit of ice between her fingers. It steamed and turned to vapor. "If I am thrown," she said, "The Stronghoof has enough food for thirty days. You have my papers. We are surrounded by shells. One will find you."


    </a> "Make a new road," she said. "Or cut it. I''d like them out, even if I am not here to have them."


    </a> Fragile wiped his eyes. He nodded.


    </a> "This work is my command," Wander said. "My tell. I will know its ending."


    </a> "It is your Family''s command?"


    </a> "It is older than the Family. It is something first."


    </a> He fidgeted.


    </a> "Put it out," she said.


    </a> "Do you want any more?"


    </a> "Smiles?"


    </a> He nodded again. "How many do you have left?" she asked.


    </a> Fragile scrunched up his brow and chewed on his fingernail. "Ih… I don''t know. A hundred, I guess."


    </a> "Give me ten."


    </a> He did.


    </a> She took out a cork of chew. After it was done, Wander moved away from him, in her custom, and she put the resin in her mouth. Fragile''s face was red and flushed by the time it was done. He went away from her.


    </a> "You will have to go, anyway," Wander said. "For a little while. Tonight. Or this evening. I''ll put you on The Stronghoof."


    </a> "Because of De?"


    </a> She nodded. "He may believe that you''ve helped me," Wander said. "If he found you, he might take you, even if I am not attacking."


    </a> She watched his lips purse, and turned away.


    </a> "May I know something?" he asked.


    </a> "If I can in kind." He tilted his head at her and she said, "I breath. I have the ask, and an eye that seeks. They are in my belt."


    </a> "It is like I said," he replied, "in the beginning. I wish you would take everything."


    </a> "All right."


    </a> He rubbed his arm again. "W-what – what happened to your hand?"


    </a> Wander flexed her right palm and opened it. Fragile saw the mark. "Is it- you don''t touch. Is that…"


    </a> She looked at him. "No," she said. "I don''t believe it is."


    </a> She ran her thumb over the brand.


    "It''s from my shell," she said. "In Shaminkat."


    "Who gave it to you?"


    "I did."


    Fragile''s brow bent and his lip rose.


    "The fire had burned up a beast," she said.


    "A beast?"


    "They called it that. I believe it was just an animal." She rubbed the mark. "I read about it later. They cut it up, to say what was coming. That was the last day I saw my birthwoman."


    His eyes widened. Wander glanced over at him.


    "I did not see her much," Wander said. "I was very happy. So I don''t know why I did this."


    She closed her palm.


    "What was she like?" Fragile asked.


    "Tall." Wander removed the hair from her scalp and set it aside. "She was warm. I feel closer to her now, when I see myself, than I did when I was young. I can see why she walked the way she did. I look for her tongue in mine, and her face." Wander bit her chin and exposed her upper teeth.


    "I wanted to know her," she said.


    She could hear Fragile move much closer to her.


    "W-what did they say?"


    She looked at him. "What?"


    </a> "About what was coming?"


    </a> "I can''t recall it. I believe it was good. But something new is always coming. Something good always comes. I learned that later."


    </a> Fragile looked at her, his face rapt.


    </a> "It is hard for me to touch you," she said. "And others."


    </a> His face turned red. "Ih- that''s not why I-"


    </a> "But-" She continued. "It is also hard not to. I wish..."


    </a> He looked back at her. "What is hard?"


    </a> Wander tugged at her scar again. "The fire went into my hands," she said. "I do not know that it ever left. There is much I want to burn. But I cannot order flames."


    </a> They both looked at the fire.


    </a> "Now my something," she said.


    </a> He blinked and sat up.


    </a> "Your name," she said. "Why you changed it. I can hear that."


    </a> She turned his head toward him. "I cannot hear the other."


    </a> "The other?"


    </a> "You did not work with metal."


    </a> He twisted his gaze.


    </a> "You say you could not face-speak. I believe you. So something made you something else. It was not a fireworker."


    </a> "I needed to be a fireworker." He gripped his knees hard and his nails bit into them. "It was my birthman''s work."


    </a> "A fireworker watches," he continued. "A fireworker pairs. He keeps the flames. I didn''t."


    </a> She tapped her hand.


    </a> "If there is a fireworker, it was in my birthman," he said. "It… it is in you."


    </a> Fragile looked back at her. "It is everything you have taken. It is revealed in every face and touch. The flames you have kept, the ones you have paired. You watch it all."


    He glanced at her hand and away. "I believe… fire can do much," he offered. "And its burning. That is why they work it. The Sixbraids. My bata- he said that it has a join. A secret one. The join that makes a cane. It brings together kind. Maybe they have the animal, too. Your hands. Maybe you can speak to it."


    Wander was silent.


    She got up and moved over to The Stronghoof.


    "W-wander?" Fragile exclaimed. He fell forward onto his hands.


    "Are you hungry?"


    "I-ih." He nodded. "Yes."


    "And I am hungry."


    -


    The sun was hidden, and the sky went from gray to black. They ate in nearness and quiet.


    The Bell approached them, her mass of rope peeking up through the snow and trailing through it. Fragile looked down at her. "Eldsister?"


    "I''m sorry," she said. "I believed you finished."


    Wander put down the chunk of grainy, orange-yellow bread she was eating, as did Fragile. "We are. What is this courtesy?"


    "I want conference." The Bell approached them. "I am afraid."


    "And me."


    "That isn''t true, Joyous One," said The Bell. "What is this courtesy?"


    Wander reached out a hand and wrapped it around the Bell''s coil, lifting her up. "What is your fear?"


    The Bell curled around her grip. "The hurt." The Bell''s voice shivered. "I have a hurt a friend once. That is what I have come to show."


    Wander dropped her. She dragged inbetween them, before the fire.


    "I have hurt a friend once," the Bell said again. "I do not know what path was walked, or how I would walk it further. The sight of it is darkness. Your cuts, Joyous One, are a dark to me. Their work is my oppost. The destruction of what I am."


    "It cannot be so," Wander said, "as you are still instruct."


    The Bell pressed herself to the ground.


    </a> Fragile lifted himself closer to her. His knee grazed her fibres. "Is there hurt in you, eldsister?"


    </a> "In me?" The Bell knotted herself. "What is hurt to this body? It feels well and true, but I do not even know its reason."


    </a> She swirled around him. His eyes followed her. "In the fight I had, weak thing – I found a want to move. I..."


    </a> The Bell paused and stuttered.


    </a> "I had a concern about … doing. It is to know a word – but not its sound. Like this kind you are. In search of your rulers'' noise. That is what I have felt. I know it now. I know each time I am in a new sense."


    </a> Her noose rose into the air before them and tied itself into loops and bows.


    </a> "The working of this strand," she said. "Speaking words you want. And the first, at the time before I knew myself. I am the child of my experiments."


    </a> "What did you learn in the fight?" Fragile asked her.


    </a> "I do not know," the Bell whined. She dropped to the ground. "I want Wander''s smiling. I want Wander to have another. Perhaps it was a way to that, but I cannot see it. I cannot bring in another by breaking it."


    </a> Wander tilted her head.


    </a> "What was your weapon?" Fragile asked.


    </a> "My weapon," the Bell said. "Not a blade. It was pulled apart. Or was it pushed? I could not see it anymore. I forgot it all then. It was some great movement."


    </a> "How do you know he has another worker?" Wander asked. The Bell moved over to her.


    </a> "He could have a trick we have not seen," she continued. "He is in the work of brightplague."


    </a> "I do not know that," The Bell said. "If it is so, I know less what it is that I can do."


    </a> Fragile removed the metal statuette from the hoofleather bag and rubbed it. "The Seenblade," he said. "Unseen. He spoke to me a little, eldsister."


    </a> The head of the Bell''s rope dipped down and up at him. "What about, weak thing?"


    </a> "He spoke of his worker. He said that he found a need for fire."


    </a> "And?"


    </a> "Well, i-it was how he supposed it," Fragile said. He scrunched up his brow. "Maybe- there is something of it in you. The same kind, I mean. Something that lit fires – it lit them in new ways. If you could suppose new ways – maybe you could suppose new weapons?"


    </a> He babbled. "You are clever and wise," he said. "And there is much you have imagined."


    </a> She spun up his body and wrapped around Fragile''s chest.


    </a> "It''s true," she said. "I have made a smile from men and beasts."


    </a> She remained there, until the sun went down.


    </a> -


    </a> Rest welcomed Fragile.


    </a> It seated him in an Empty House, beside a river. He watched the water flow.


    </a> They came out from the water, and he saw their faces. They dripped red and green. They walked from the bottom up to his spot, where they stood over him.


    </a> "Son of Peak," said Lastfarmer.


    </a> He looked up at her, and he looked at Wellborn, and he looked at the Wild mother. Her eyes were as gold as they had once been; she stood between the birthwoman and the Wallwoman, distant and quietly.


    </a> The skin of the others was exposed. The boil on Lastfarmer''s leg was present. The charring of her flesh reached around from her back. The darkness of the burns was illuminated by the stars.


    </a> The cuts that had been made to Wellborn''s stomach, chest, arms, and pelvis remained. Her head gave out a wave of brambles, stamped into her skull. They waved like real hair.


    </a> Lastfarmer reached down. Fragile closed his eyes as the old Sixbraid lunged toward him. At his center there was a scream and a whisper. He imagined her hand reaching out and taking something that he had that she needed. But it just pulled him forward, and he stood below the three.


    </a> "Have you come to eat me?" Fragile asked.


    </a> The women did not reply. He felt their gazes on him.


    </a> "Please," he said. "Please, bati. Tell me what I must do."


    </a> "What must you do?" Wellborn asked.


    </a> Fragile could not speak when he looked at them. They looked at him.


    </a> "The words are gone," he screamed. "All the words are gone. They are all empty. I have thrown them away from me. I have thrown out the rulers from their spot. Every name you are is vanished. It is all a face-speaking, this sun of mine. It is really a darkness. I have destroyed you twice."


    </a> He hid himself with his hands.


    </a> "Open yourself, Son of Peak," said Lastfarmer. He removed his hands from his face. There was still a night. The women had moved, and there were more.


    </a> Beneath them, seated in the river, many men and women looked up at Fragile. Many of their heads were shaven and burnt and they were stripped.


    </a> He fell onto his knees. He could feel the three around him, and they did the same.


    </a> "Is it true what Wander says?" Fragile asked.


    </a> "What?"


    </a> "That the calls will be no more."


    Wellborn stepped forward. She threw her hand out to the masses. The wind collected and carried her locks.


    "See you silence, Fragile Man?" Wellborn asked. "See you end?"


    "No, eldwoman," Fragile said.


    Lastfarmer laid her hand over his head and pulled open his eyes. "Do these walls look empty?" she asked. "Do their words seem lost?"


    "No, eldwoman," Fragile said.


    The Wild mother rose up from the ground in front of him. She leaned forward. "Is it quiet?" she asked. "Has the sound been thrown?"


    "No, eldwoman," Fragile said.


    "Has the sound been thrown?"


    She opened her mouth. There, three strings were hitched between the floor of her mouth and its roof. They rippled and rang out.


    The mass and shadows rose up out of the stream on both sides, covering the land in water. They surrounded Fragile and came down from the sky. He could feel a touch on his chest, back, hands, arms, and on the top of his head.


    "There is no two, Fragile."


    Fragile opened his mouth, and a note rang out. He cried.


    "Fragile."


    -


    "Fragile."


    There was a plunge as he was assembled in his sleep-sack clutching his throat mid-cry. The fire had gone out. Wander crouched over him.


    "It''s time," she said."


    Fragile dressed and packed. He wrapped himself in his coldover and Wander fastened The Stronghoof''s ties.


    "If there has been no work by our next night," she said. "I''ll call it out from the rounds. Be very careful. Don''t go near speaking. If you see something move that is not a group, remain from it."


    She turned to him. He clung to his hoofleather bag and stared up at her.


    He reached out a hand slightly and touched her with a finger.


    He looked at the Bell, who was wound around Wander''s neck.


    "I will see you tomorrow, eldsister," Fragile said.


    The Bell opened up a tendril toward him. "I see you always, Fragile. We have a touch. It cannot be changed."


    He smiled and nodded. She reached out from Wander''s neck and poked his head.


    Wander took him into her arms and lifted him onto The Stronghoof.


    "We will see you again, my friend," Wander told him.


    He looked at her.


    "I know," he said.


    She whistled and The Stronghoof shot off into The Wild. The Stonehoof followed, trailing Fragile''s smell.


    The Bell wrapped herself tight around Wander''s shoulderskin. They returned to the fire and she sat. The stars shined, and lightning flashed over the peaks.


    "When he comes," Wander said. "Raise me up."


    "I will."


    She looked out into the dark."


    -


    "He''s back," her Wiser whispered.


    "Joyous one."


    "He''s back."


    Wander''s eyes opened. The Bell was on her chest, brushing her nose.


    "He''s back, Joyous One," The Bell said. "He''s back."


    "Back?"


    The Bell tied herself tight around Wander''s waist. Her eyes widened. She lifted her blaith and stood.


    The sun was breaking through the sky, but another thunderhead had fallen over. It produced a ceiling-effect that the light needed to roll against and inside, caking itself in towering miles of thicktrees and gray plateau. In front of her, on all quarters of the spot surrounding the shell, the place had become fenced by the measure of a Larun army.


    </a> The arms that the soldiers carried were teeth, claws, and talons. Their uniform was their native dress. Howls, stompers, and tusks stood in rank, their eyes fixed on her.


    </a> The air was still, and she could hear the dripping of ice from the corners of the destroyed roundseats. It shifted as they advanced, with the crunching roll of their feet. Roots that they might have tripped on folded beneath the ground.


    </a> The thunderheads shivered, breathed and descended. They were wings of different sizes, up to the length of men, rotating in a distended vortex. They moved synchronously, and they too were quiet, except for the beating that their flaps produced, a thumping and thumping and thumping that hid behind the march of the animals on the ground.


    The advancing army stopped. At the center of the host, a pair of figures were placed into sharp definition, both of diminutive stature, which nevertheless placed each above the rest of it, and by the sun shining in.


    De limped forward. His long maroon wrappings were frayed and frost-clung. His pierced down his iron walking stick with each step.


    The Cane extended two jittering fingers that shook at his companion, and Fragile moved out as well.