6: Whispers

As they descended deeper into Qasaar, Leiyn’s hands twitched by her sides. It wasn’t only because of the staring passersby, or that Gasts surrounded her without another colonist in sight. No—it was the very stone itself that made her uneasy, teasing her lifesense, muddling her mind. The mass of humanity had already made her want to retreat into her own body; the phantoms almost forced it.

She’d never been fond of cities. This one was quickly becoming her most hated of all. 

She exhaled what felt like a long-held breath when Tozi finally gestured up. “There it is: the Tepe’laka, or the Whisperspire, in your tongue.”

Little seemed to whisper about the sight. Rising high from the surrounding plaza, it was the most prominent feature around. Its stone was striated in the same way as the wardstone Leiyn had glimpsed at a distance, though it didn’t pulse esse as the monolith had. Still, her lifesense felt something stirring within the stone. Not quite alive, yet neither dead. 

Leiyn frowned. The idea of entering was even less appealing than traveling through the city. Still, she only said, “Lead, and we’ll follow."

Their guide smiled and did as she bade. Leiyn's eyes lingered on the archway as she passed beneath it, observing the carvings worn down by the years. The whispers grew louder as she stepped foot inside, and not in her ears. Like a multitude of tiny breezes against her lifefire, they seemed, tossing it this way and that. Her temper, thus far tightly reined in, began to fray.

She saw only one solution. Though she'd resolved not to close herself off any longer and to embrace the magic she'd once seen as a curse, Leiyn put up her mahia’s walls. The murmurs dulled at once, and her lifeforce stood tall. She sucked in a deep breath, then let it out slowly.

Tozi glanced back, then away. Wondering if I’m mad, no doubt. She fought down a smile.

The Whisperspire only went one direction: up. There were no offshooting chambers, no landings to rest on, no windows to provide relief from the stifling heat, which amassed in the stairwell despite the chill outside. The stairs curled around and around, too narrow and high for comfortable strides.

Other voices sounded from above, and these not in her head. They were reaching the top. Leiyn braced herself, then mounted the last step, wiped the sweat from her brow, and stepped through the low archway.

The chamber resembled a rotunda, circular with a high, domed roof, all made of seamless stone. A brilliant fresco was painted upon it. By the depictions, Leiyn guessed the Gasts couldn’t take credit for it. The style was wrong for them, far more delicate and finicky than the indigenous art she’d seen; it was more like something she’d expect in a Catedrál temple. There was an additional spark to the drawings, almost like the characters upon it might come alive at any moment. She didn’t lower her mahia’s walls to test the theory.

Lowering her gaze, she saw similar paintings down the walls between the many windows, open from floor to ceiling to the air outside. Though a breeze crept in, it lacked the chill Leiyn would have expected at their height. 

The people in the center of the chamber drew her attention. They sat around a table, almost circular but with many straight edges like a cut gem. Its face seemed to hold a map, though the land it portrayed was very different from the one surrounding them, green and blue instead of orange and yellow.

Three women and one man sat, most grayed and weathered with age. The other chieftains of the Tetrad, she presumed them to be. The women seemed to be Gast, while the man was from a different tribe. Many tribes had gone north after the Titan War, and though Gasts made up the largest portion of them, other peoples had also forged a home here on the peripheries of Unera. 

These others she distinguished by their accoutrements. When the man smiled, she quickly saw he was Uman, for only their people glued precious stones and metal to their teeth. She had heard it was done not only to signal personal power, but also because it was supposed to be beneficial for one’s health.

Acalan stood on the opposite end of the chamber. He'd been speaking passionately before Leiyn had entered, though she hadn’t caught much of his words. As he stared at her, she found not the anger she'd expected, but heavy resignation. That, more than anything else, unsettled Leiyn. 

But she hardened herself to him. She'd come north for a purpose, and she would accomplish it as soon as possible. 

If only to escape this damned city.

"Who are they?” the older of the chieftainesses spoke from her seat at the table. She had a score of thin braids, all of which were decorated with thick blue beads, and a wrinkled, round face. “The outlander rangers?"

Her tone pricked at Leiyn. Before she could shoot off a biting retort, Acalan intervened.

"Yes. These were my companions for the journey north: Isla Ogbi and Leiyn of Orille, formerly rangers of Baltesia, and now its envoys.”

“We’re still rangers,” Leiyn interrupted. “Though it’s true we’re presently acting as Lord Mauricio’s diplomats.”

Both Acalan and Isla gave her long-suffering looks, but neither contradicted her.

“So you are sent by that scrawny governor." The Uman chieftain spoke now, gold and turquoise flashing on his teeth.

Leiyn had always shot straight and true; she saw no reason to change that now. "Yes. We come to forge an alliance between our peoples, so we may face our enemies together."

Whispers and louder remarks sounded at once. Leiyn kept her face impassive, but her mind raced. If she hadn't known better, she would have thought them surprised by the announcement. Her gaze traveled back to Acalan, realizing just how little she knew of what she’d entered into.

Saints above, you've stepped in it now, Firebrand.

"Toa Acalan," the blue-beaded chieftainess spoke, "you have not told us everything. An alliance with the southern invaders? Are we so desperate as to rest our hopes on them?"

Invaders. Leiyn's smile slipped away. It didn’t matter that she'd been born to this land, or that she knew the Titan Wilds better than any of them after so long apart from it. She and her people would always be considered outsiders to them, and no number of years would change that. 

But that topic was a hornet's nest, so she held her tongue and looked to Acalan. Maybe it was too late, but she had no choice but to follow his lead now.

His dark eyes alighted on hers briefly, and his familiar scowl appeared. "What Ranger Leiyn said, blunt though it was, is true.” He swept his gaze over the gathered men and women. "They seek the alliance not for our war, but theirs. Their originland attacks its own people. The governor fears they cannot stand against them without our aid. Ilberia has their shamans, and Baltesia none."

A younger woman stood, her face a set of hard planes. A prominent red tattoo painted wings over her eyes, the white beak of a bird stretching down her nose.

“And why should we die for them? They, whose ancestors killed ours? Who killed my mother’s mother and father?"

Leiyn's temper was rising, but that revelation cooled it. She looked around at the gathered elders and wondered how many remembered the Titan War. Too many, I'll warrant. Conflict with the colonists was no event of history for them; it was a bloody memory never forgotten. Old enemies rarely were.

She wondered how they’d ever hoped to find allies in Gasts.

The others gathered were nodding and many affirmed her words. Acalan, however, remained unmoved.

"They are not the only ones at war, Toa Ilaoti,” he said, the words quiet but firm. "The Devils of the Barren pick us off, one by one by one. Can we afford to fight them any longer without aid?"

Devils of the Barren. Was this the enemy the chieftain had named "death" before? She wondered what manner of being they were, beast or human. 

Or something else. 

The whisper-winds nudging against her mahia's walls were evidence that the likelihood existed. Dryvans, after all, walked Unera’s surface; perhaps other such powerful beings, and with worse intent, also lingered in the far corners of the world.

Acalan paused, letting his words sink in before continuing.

"Leiyn is not only a ranger; she is a shaman, or could be. Zuma rested his hopes on her."

"Taht Zuma." The blue-beaded woman, Zyanya, went back on the offensive. "Where has your shaman gone, Acalan?"

The others looked to Acalan. His frown deepened further still.

"Zuma did not return," he said quietly. "He fell in a battle at Southport."

His eyes flickered to Leiyn, and she suffered the damning weight of his gaze. Her thoughts went back to the old shaman, how frail he'd looked on his death bed. A hand went to her chest, as if to feel the last spark of his life that lodged there. 

She stopped herself at the last moment. Now was not the time to remember. 

Harden your walls, Firebrand. Keep your head on straight.

"He died saving me," she said. All the chieftains stared at her again. Leiyn met Acalan's eyes, and when he didn’t speak against her, she continued. "I summoned a titan of the sea, a kraken, to strike at my enemy, but I gave more of myself than I should have. Zuma… he pulled me back, but the strain proved too great."

Her eyes burned, but she blinked rapidly and drew her thoughts away from his sacrifice. She wouldn’t cry. Now, she needed to be strong.

Zyanya watched her with pursed lips. It was the Uman chieftain who spoke now. 

"You tell a funny tale, Ranger Leiyn! You summoned a titan, did you? What, are we expected to believe you to be one of your people's shamans as well as a ranger?" He looked to his peers with a grin, putting his shiny teeth on display. When he found no reciprocation, his smile slowly slipped away.

"You cannot be," the younger chieftainess, Ilaoti, all but snapped. "Your people hunt shamans and kill them at birth." 

Leiyn met her gaze. She was barely older than Leiyn and robust in size, curvaceous without excess. Her dress was dyed a deep scarlet to match her facial tattoos, and red jewelry dangled from her neck and ears. Leiyn suspected the color to be of importance. It couldn’t be a coincidence that her tattoos matched the scout Teya’s. Likely, this was the leader of Teya’s tribe.

Before Leiyn could speak, Acalan intervened. "She is as she says. You would sense how strong the magic is in her if you had the touch, Toa Ilaoti. As Taht Xepi no doubt does."

His gaze went to the last woman in the room, and Leiyn looked at her for the first time. She had a wide face that was somewhat like a toad’s: splayed cheekbones, a heavy brow, and a plate-like jaw. In contrast, her lips and eyebrows were thin and spare. Pale blue tattoos spiderwebbed across her face and into her shortly cropped hair. Her girth was generous as well beneath undyed doeskin robes. A thick necklace of bones and beads rattled with her every movement. 

It was the feather-tipped staff leaning on the window behind her that alerted Leiyn to what she was as much as Acalan's address to her. Zuma had borne a similar staff. Leiyn tried not to feel uneasy before the shaman as she awaited her answer.

Mother Xepi twisted her lips to one side before she spoke. Her voice was more melodious than her appearance had led Leiyn to expect. "I do, though she tries to hide it."

Leiyn almost released her walls. That had sounded like an accusation. Excuses came up, but fear swallowed them down. Zuma had heard the whispers back in the ancient ruins they'd stayed in, but she wouldn’t risk being thought mad before these strangers.

"I don't mean to hide from you," Leiyn said carefully. "It’s an old habit that has been hard to kill."

The shaman only twisted her lips to the other side and said nothing.

"She swore an oath to Zuma," Acalan spoke into the silence. "That she would come and aid us. Teach her, Mother, so she might fight against our enemies. It is what he would have wanted."

Leiyn opened her mouth to speak against this, but hesitated. She had promised Zuma, true enough. But to be volunteered instead of choosing for herself… Still, though apprehension roiled inside her, she sealed her lips shut again. She was supposed to be an envoy now. 

Past time I started acting like it.

"That’s correct," she said aloud. "In exchange for your assistance in the coming war, I intend to provide my own." Though she had her doubts on how much that would be worth.

"Trained as a shaman?" Zyanya glared first at Acalan, then Xepi. "Surely, you cannot mean to—"

She never finished her sentence, for a being suddenly stepped into their midst. 

The chieftains stood, shouting in alarm. Leiyn drew the knife tucked into the small of her back and held it before her. Only Mother Xepi didn’t react, but remained seated and staring at the newcomer.

Only then did Leiyn really look at them. It was a dryvan, immediately apparent by their appearance, which was too strange to be human. She had a female body, with the semblance of breasts and hips, though they were so covered in silver fur as to almost be obscured. Yet other features seemed more familiar: the taloned feet and clawed hands, the acorn quality of her skin, the green vines that acted as both hair and clothes…

“Rowan?” Leiyn blurted out before she could think better of it. 

The dryvan grinned and tilted her head to one side. Leiyn knew then she’d guessed correctly.

"Hello, Awakener. How wonderful to see you again."

"Sach’aan," Zyanya said sharply. "You are from south of the mountains?"

Rowan slowly looked over at her, and Leiyn hastily sheathed her knife. Something in her stare made Leiyn's skin crawl. It seemed even sharper than her teeth, which had only seemed to elongate since the last time she'd seen her.

"If I were not, your shaman would have attacked me on sight." The dryvan's head fell lazily to the other side as she looked back to Leiyn. "And how else would she know me? Our enemies do not dare venture into my territory."

Our enemies. Leiyn narrowed her eyes as she pondered the implications in the words. Do the dryvans and the Gasts share foes? She couldn't see how that would be. The skin-walkers had never seemed much concerned with human affairs before Leiyn and her friends had stumbled upon them. 

"What's going on, Rowan? Why are you here?"

“Rowan…” The dryvan pursed her lips, inasmuch as she had any in that woody face of hers. "I don't quite think that name suits me any longer, do you? Not with my present companion." She gestured hands down her body and grinned. "How about… Foxfur? Call me Foxfur, Awakener."

"Foxfur," Leiyn complied.

Rowan—or Foxfur now, it seemed—grinned wider. "Ah, yes! He likes it as well. Foxfur it is!"

Acalan looked over his fellow chieftains, his eyes full of warning. His hand had come away from his macua's hilt to hang limp at his side.

“Sach’aan,” he rumbled, "you do not often visit. Why do you come now?"

Leiyn wondered at the wariness in Acalan's tone. If they shared enemies, didn't that make them allies? Yet their interactions seemed far more like adversaries.

Foxfur raised a gnarled hand to point at Leiyn, though her eyes remained on Acalan. "Her. There is something she must see if she is to do what she must."

See? Do what I must? Her irritation was beginning to fan into anger. Each one of these people had their own agendas for her, and she was getting damned tired of it. 

“Why don’t we start with a few explanations?" she said bitingly.

Foxfur loosed a laugh, her whole body trembling with it. "Words. They are always so… insufficient, do you not think? No, Awakener—I have a much more effective way of helping you learn all you must."

Before Leiyn could react, the dryvan lunged across the room and seized her arm. Leiyn tried pulling away, but her grip was as strong and implacable as a tree's roots.

"What are you—?"

She never finished the sentence. Foxfur dragged her toward a window, then flashed a sharp-toothed grin.

The dryvan stepped through and pulled Leiyn down after her.

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