Penumbra - Book 2 (11)

While Salazar had said that he would get Kerron back to his tribe's camp, since the ranger had only vaguely known the path that Kerron's tribe traveled on and Kerron had been walking it his whole life, it was actually more like Kerron leading Salazar on the rocky pathways through the mountains to where his tribe was camping in the forested foothills on the western slope of the Rashadas. Most darksiders marked their location, and the passage of time, by the ever-present stars, but this close to dawn most of the heavenly bodies were obscured, an expected development but one that still bought with it a vague sense of unease for a people so used to them as their constant companion. Kerron was happy to help the temporarily disoriented Salazar through the winding paths along the mountain cliffs, but apart from the occasional gesture to alter their direction, little was spoken on the trip, Kerron too shy to attempt to start a conversation, Salazar equally reticent for his own reasons.

As they had come into the camp there had been a number of glances up at the newcomer that Kerron had bought back to camp with him, but it was not entirely rare to have rangers come through camp when pitched this close to the penumbra. Inter-tribe rivalries existed, to be sure, but they were generally put aside as morning, and the enemy it bought with it, grew closer, presenting a more serious threat than the petty inter-generational squabbles that sometimes arose between the nomadic tribes that formed the majority of the darksider population. Salazar nodded respectfully to a few of the campsite guards that eyed him, and then asked for Kerron to take him to the tribal leader with haste. Kerron wended his way through camp towards the centre, feeling somewhat proud of himself for leading a ranger- he knew people were watching him, asking themselves who this man was and why he was following odd old Kerron- it did not occur to him that many would be thinking that the man was bringing the errant boy in for discipline after the latest of his many disappearances.

They reached the large wigwam that belonged to Asherei, the eldest of Kerron's tribe, and he pointed to the tent with one flat hand, fingers extended, as if to say: "There it is." while saying nothing at all. Salazar asked Kerron to stay where he was, spoke quietly to one of the two sentries that stood guard at the entrance to the tent, then entered. Kerron shuffled his feet and turned away from the guards. He stood there for what felt like longer than the few minutes that it actually was, before Salazar emerged once again and spoke again, much more loudly this time, in a voice that carried far. To one of the guards he said:

"Your people need to decamp and get underway as soon as possible, dawn is not far off and the enemy is much further up the pass than it usually is for this time of the year. Help me spread the word to get ready to depart." The guard to whom he spoke took on a startled expression and nodded sharply before running off into the camp, barking instructions to those tribes-people nearest to him, telling them to prepare for moving out. A ripple of voices extended out from the wigwam, each citizen passing the message on to the next. Kerron himself turned to head to his own crib's tent, but Salazar stopped him with a word.

"Not you, boy. Your elder wants a word with you." he said with gravity, gesturing with his thumb towards the structure from which he had just emerged.

Kerron gulped and took a deep breath to steady himself while Salazar turned from him and jogged off into the camp to help spread word of the departure. Asherei did not have a reputation as being particularly frightening, but she was still the leader of his tribe, and Kerron had never exchanged more than a few words with her his whole life, those few usually as part of some ceremony or another- he'd never had an individual audience with her before. The youth was understandably nervous, yet sanguine, so after taking a few calming breaths he ducked his head and entered the tent.

Asherei sat, swaddled in blankets and cloaks, before the embers of a fire in the centre of her domicile, poking at them with her walking stick, which she then used to gesture for Kerron to sit. He did so, crossing his legs as he had done on the rock in the mountains some hours before to sit between the fire and the still-open entry to the tent, the sharp light of morning flooding in behind him. His eyes adjusted to the relative darkness within a few moments and it was only then that he noticed that there was a third person in the tent, sitting well backward from the fireplace: a large, bald man with thickset eyebrows that gave him a forbidding, looming expression, but remained silent, as did Asherei.

They stayed in this fashion for some time, Kerron not wanting to speak out of turn, pondering feverishly if it was indeed his obligation to announce himself to his leader. He had finally decided that they must surely be waiting for him to say something, and was just opening his mouth to introduce himself when Asherei, as if sensing that he was about to speak, cut him off and spoke for him, almost saying the very words he himself had been about to say.

"You are Kerron, yes? Chari's child?" Her voice had the dessicated quality of the very aged, yet still clearly held great power beneath it, held below the surface.

Kerron nodded and managed to croak out a choked: "Yes, ah, yes elder. I am he. Kerron, I mean. I'm Kerron."

Asherei regarded him with one cocked eye, looked back at the third man in the tent, who remained expressionless, then returned her regard to Kerron, moving slowly and purposefully, the way a mountain cat moved when stalking its prey. Taking her time. Such a dreamy pace seemed strangely at odds with the urgency taking place just outside the tent, and Kerron voiced this contradiction out loud:

"We are decamping, elder. Should we not gather our materials? There is little time."

Asherei shook her head and looked back down into the fire, began prodding it, murmuring as if to herself.

"There is time enough, young stripling. It was I who gave the order to decamp, after all. It will take time for the word to reach the outlying hunters and gatherers, and time again for them to collect what they need and return to camp. We don't want to go another season short on mountain mushrooms now, do we? No, we have time." She prodded the fire again, and a puff of sparks flew up momentarily between her and Kerron, tiny points of light making her wrinkle-lines bend and twist bizarrely before receding again into shadow. "I know our life is one of constant motion, but even for us, we must find the time to be calm, to be at peace. You understand that, do you not, young one?"

Kerron nodded, and it was true, he did understand. What were his explorations away from the tribe if not a search for quiet places? More than that, perhaps, but that also. He forced his mind to become quiet, breathed slowly, and focused on the shapes being formed in the embers, as Asherei was doing. Freed from his thoughts, his mind explored his other senses. The tent was warm from the enclosed embers, and a light smoke drifted up to the top of the tent, where it escaped. It smelt of tree bark. They sat again for an unspecified time, before Asherei shifted in her seat with a grunt, then turned her attention back to Kerron.

"Thank you for bringing the man, Salazar- his news was not good, but good of him to bring it to us ahead of his own people. And you back to us, also." She arched an eyebrow. Kerron said nothing, and she continued. "Chari has spoken to me more than once about your departures from camp, the worry you've caused her, and your crib. She has said that there have been times when the camp has moved on without you, that she feared you lost forever."

Kerron still said nothing, unaware that it was her turn to speak, until Asherei lifted her stick from the embers and pushed it over the hearth to prod his knee sharply.

"Well, boy, speak up. Is it true, what she says?"

Kerron spoke with indignity: "I know the path our tribe travels. I've always managed to catch up again, even after we've decamped."

A wave of anger passed over Asherei's face and Kerron thought she might yell, but it was gone as quickly as it had come and instead she simply prodded the fire again and grunted acknowledgment, a sound perilously close to a laugh.

"I suppose you did at that, the fact you're sitting here be testament to it." She regarded him wryly. "So, you think you could walk the path without the tribe to guide ye?"

Kerron answered truthfully without hesitation, for it was a matter of fact. "Of course."

"Hmm." The corners of her wizened mouth crinkled ever so slightly upwards. "Useful skill, child." She paused to cough before she continued. "The ranger also told me that you had made a sand-drawing of some size and accuracy in the mountains, would this be true?"

Kerron nodded once more, unsure this time if he should speak the truth, but there was nothing for it.

"I like to sand-draw also," Asherei said, gesturing to her side with one wrinkled hand. There, in the earth of the tent floor, were a series of complex, interlocking circles drawn in the sand, far more intricate and exact than anything Kerron could have drawn. "Do you know what this is, Kerron?" she asked.

Kerron studied the patterns for a short while before answering. It took a moment for a familiar pattern to emerge from the overall shape of the thing, but once it had the answer seemed clear. "It... seems to be... the orbit of the world around the sun." he said, looking more closely to be sure before before continuing: "But there are some other orbits that I don't recognize."

Asherei seemed impressed. "You know of the heavenly bodies then?"

"Yes, elder, all of my crib does. My crib-mother has said it is important to know all of the stars, and how they move. It helps us to know where we are."

The elder seemed momentarily disgruntled. "Would that all of my tribe were as smart as she, child. And her offspring, it would seem." she added, and again Kerron felt a flush of pleasure at being recognized for one of the attributes for which he was proud, rather than singled out by them.

Asherei again lapsed into silence, and so too Kerron was compelled to follow suit, but he was becoming used to her strange stop-and-start pattern of questioning, beginning to find it more comforting than uncomfortable. Instead of fretting and letting his mind churn, he listened to the sounds outside of the thick animal-skin canvas wall of the tent: of the camp being packed up, children called for, horses being tethered to carts for the next leap forward away from the sun. The sounds, so familiar after a lifetime, seemed alien and odd from within the silence of the tent, the gentle crackling of embers given primacy. He realized he could hear the sound of breathing; the quiet, forbidding man to Asherei's left breathing woodsmoke sharply in to his nostrils. Kerron's eyes flicked to the man's face, but darted away just as quickly when he found that the man was staring at him intently, bright eyes hidden in the deepset folds of his sockets. His discomfort returned.

After a while, Asherei continued.

"Young one who knows so much, let us see how much you know." She said, emphasizing each word with a prod of her stick in the air. "Do you know of the Thals, young one who knows so much?"

Kerron searched his memory. "Yes, elder. I have heard speak of them."

She eyed him warily, one eyebrow slightly raised, the other dropped sharply.

"Have you now? Tell me then, what have you heard?"

Kerron shifted, wary of a trap, but happy to again demonstrate his knowledge before his tribe's most venerated figure.

"They do not travel the path as we do, or at least, not... not always. They are cave-dwellers, elder, who hide from the sun, and the daywalkers, under the earth as they both pass over, and then re-emerge, after many moons have passed, as the penumbra passes over them, to come outside for food, trade and banter. Then they return to the earth to let the black winter pass them over, and again ascend to the surface for the twilight moons to pass."

"Just so." The elder nodded. "Anything else?"

"They are kin to our people, but not close to us. They are aggressive and discordial."

Asherei smiled and again looked to her silent companion.

"Discordial, eh?" She laughed quietly to herself, as the man stayed stolid.

"Kerron, I'd like you to meet my friend." As she gestured to the man, Kerron suddenly knew why he seemed unfamiliar, and a thick stone of embrassment sunk to the pit of his stomach. "His name is Mott, and he is a Thal, or as you say, a cave-dweller."

"I beg your forgiveness, sir." Kerron muttered quickly. Asherei laughed even more loudly, a strange croaking noise that started low in her throat.

"Nonsense! Not a word you said was untrue. Aggressive and discordial, right Mott?" Again came the croaking, froglike sound of mirth. Mott himself seemed immovable, like stone, and continued to stare at the shamed Kerron, whose eyes were now affixed firmly to the floor of the tent. "Couldn't have picked better words myself."

Asherei continued: "He is also our kin, as you said. Mott is cousin to me, and so to our whole tribe, although I don't think he'd admit it to many other Thals, would you Mott?" She laughed again, before poking the silent Mott with her stick. "Show him what you showed me, Mott."

The man moved for the first time, turning slightly to face Asherei and giving her a questioning look. The old woman started and then turned back to Kerron.

"Of course, of course: Young man. Kerron. I need your solemn pledge that what you're about to see does not leave this tent. That you do not breathe a word of what you've seen to anyone, not even your crib-mother. Do you understand?"

Kerron nodded, his heart quickening. "Of course, elder."

That was not good enough for the elder, so she persisted. "I need you to swear it."

"On my life, I swear I shall not speak of this."

The elder nodded slowly as she considered him carefully, making a low humming noise to herself as she did so.

"Good enough for me, and I extend my trust of him to you, Mott."

Mott did not respond, but rather twisted to one side and pulled at a knot on his belt in order to detach a small pouch that was secured to it. He loosened the drawstrings on the pouch and from it gingerly withdrew a pinch of coarse black powder. He made another questioning look at Asherei and, seeing her nod, threw the powder into the embers before her.

In an instant, the embers flared into a mighty blaze, as if the fuel of an entire tree had been consumed in an instant and funneled out of the hearth and into the tent. The walls of the tent, the faces of Asherei and Mott, the patterns on the floor, all were illuminated by a powerful light that hurt Kerron's eyes, and a heat that he felt singe his eyebrows and prickle his skin. It only lasted for a fragment of a second and then it was gone, the tent plunged back into relative darkness and the only sign that anything had occurred at all the dazzling afterimage that continued to leap in his retina long after the fire had returned to the smoldering state he had found it in when he first entered the tent. That, and a rotten, acrid smell that forced itself into his nostrils.

Kerron was too stunned to speak, so, after a short half-minute had passed, Asherei spoke for him, capturing his feelings.

"Quite something, wasn't it? And that was just a pinch. If Mott had thrown his whole pouch into the fire, you, met, the tent, and probably a few tents around mine, would have been blown out of existence. Quite something."

Kerron stumbled over his own words. "What... what was it?"

"It's called sulpur. It's a kind of crystal that is found in the depths of Mott's cave, among others. But more importantly than that, it is a weapon. A weapon with the power to significantly change our world."

"A weapon?" Kerron said, not understanding, watching the pouch with a quiet sort of horror as Mott carefully tightening the fastenings and returned it to his belt with deliberate motions.

"A weapon against the lightsiders, Kerron." Asherei said with surprising venom. "You friend Salazar also said the towers are further past the light-line than they've ever come before at this time of year, when they cross the mountain gap. They come closer every year. It's well known that the hardiest crops, the most well-fed hunting, survive closest to the light-line. Where it is warm. We used to be able to forage without molestation on our side of the line, while the daywalkers stayed on theirs. But just as our need grows, so does theirs. So ever more they push into our territory to take what belongs to us. The food from our mouths. The cloth from our backs. But with this" Asherei made a fist with her hand, as if holding a pouch of the deadly stuff, "we could do anything. Take down a tower. block the mountain path behind us. Wipe them out if we chose to. A crystal, yes. But power, that is what it really is, child."

Kerron's mind ran. "Wh-why do you show me this?" he stammered.

"I need a messenger, child. Someone of my kin. One whom I can trust. Someone who has a good head on his shoulders. Knows his way across the great path. One who can find his place using the stars. Someone, it seems, just like you."

"Who is this message for, elder?"

"You ask the right questions, child. My confidence in you grows with every one. It is for my counterpart. The leader of our sister tribe on the other side."

Kerron gulped, sure he could not be hearing what he thought he was hearing. "The... other side? The other side of what?"

Asherei leaned over the embers, her face lit up from below in a frightening mask.

"The other side of our world, child. They say you like to watch the sun rise, boy. Well now you're going to have the chance to watch it set."