Chapter Text
A lake of skyshine water resided in the sandstone where the desert's eastern mouth gaped wide. Patches of grass—some green, others yellow—lay upstream in the space between the lake's feed and the adjoining dirt trail marked by little cairns. This water did not flow to the sea, but came only to quench the heat. She knelt at its edge, and she cupped her hands to drink and wash the windborne grit from her cheeks and hair. Her Zol cloak caught droplets from her splashing. The hot stone darkened where the ripples lapped at it. She filled her waterskin and rose to her feet to look down at the water's surface. Ripples settled. Her reflection resolved.
The water was within her, and she within it—a loose hair, or a droplet of sweat. She blinked and saw the figure in the water change, rising over a hand's width in height, with longer hair to match, and with eyes more tired, but wiser.
Like Mother had looked.
She blinked again and beheld a child—distinctly older than Ivan, though still quite small—in robes whose overlong sleeves threatened to touch the reeds framing the reflection. A trickle of blood appeared from beneath the girl's hair, and Hama reached up with her fingers to the same spot on her own head, but found only the sheen of a drop of sweat when she inspected them.
When her eyes returned to the water's surface, even her own reflection was gone, and all that remained was a tenuous window to the expanse of fish and plants beyond.
She'd been out in the sun too long. She rubbed her eyes and cast her gaze upriver, and she spied a mountain ridge with a village's worth of buildings speckling the slopes. Their roofs were square and flared, and she climbed toward them—easily, at first, over the gently rising terrain. She drank steadily and ate what little remained of the food Gulzar gave her as she departed. It was mostly dried fruit, although there were some pan-crisped insects mixed in. She had avoided eating them at first, but while the texture was strange, the taste was pleasantly tangy.
The climb grew difficult as she reached the mountain slopes, although after an hour's struggle grasping at roots and rocks, she stumbled onto a zigzagging trail and felt stupid for her wasted effort. As she continued, the trail passed a narrow cataract, fringed by moss and lichen, and spitting and sputtering over uneven rocks on its way down.
After some time, she stopped to rest along a flat stretch of the path, perching upon a weathered gray boulder. It took her longer to catch her breath than usual, but the air was cooler, and a steady breeze stirred her clothes. She could peer into the desert from here, past the shine of the lake and into the Lamakan's scorching mouth. A sense of calm reigned here. A hawk soared overhead, rising lazily in a circle with a few beats of its wings. Its shadow swept past Hama's feet.
Parisa had sent her on her way with the Zol fiber cloak as a gift, and now, at rest on this ridge, she felt it tugging slightly upward on her body. The breeze flowed easily through the sleeves, bathing her body in crisp air. In a breath, out a breath—she resumed, checking her pace against her breathing. The path wound upward still, turning corner after corner. Night fell as she rose, and she pressed on by moonlight. When at last she reached what previously was just the distant essence of a village, the gates were closed.
She called out, once or twice, breathless from her final push. No-one responded. She sat against the wall in a welcoming pile of leaves to rest a while, pulling her backpack into her lap. Before she could summon the will to fight it, a heavy weight settled over her body and closed her eyes.
On the morning after the storm, the ship's captain approached them to inquire further about what had happened. He was more lenient than expected as he spoke to Hammet, offering his understanding, for he had children of his own. Hama exchanged bemused glances with Hammet while the old sailor laughed like a bellows, and neither of them resolved to correct him.
The remainder of the voyage passed uneventfully, drifting between day and night on a steady rhythm of meals of dried this and pickled that. Hama craved lettuce, cabbage, and even bitter carrot greens. She longed for a place to stand that did not heave, fall, and roll beneath her feet, and she dreamt of a place to sleep that did not smell of stale straw and sweat. In summers past, before Ivan was born, Mother would boil beans, and then let them cool as she diced tomatoes. She would mix them gently to keep from mashing them, and she sprinkled salt on top.
It was a simple meal, but a refreshing one. She missed it.
It was a rainy evening when the ship reached Ost. Lanterns hooked to the ship and piers' railings lit the way as Hama shuffled down the gangplank with Ivan and the Shaman's Rod in her arms. Hammet and Bunza followed close behind.
"Do you know this place, Hammet?" asked Hama, craning her neck as she set foot on the pier.
"Bunza and I have passed through a few times. It's not a nice place to stay long."
"We should get away from the harbor," Bunza said. "A lot of sailors pass through this port and they get rowdy. Some of them sail all the way from Osenia and lose their minds from being at sea so long."
"Cabin fever," added Hammet. "Most of them get their restless energy out after a few hours of drinking and shouting, but with ships coming in regularly, it never ends."
Bunza stroked his beard. "What was that place we stayed last time?"
"Something alliterative, I think..." Hammet's gaze drifted upward in thought.
"The Pickled Pike?"
"That's the one. And, uh..." He turned to Hama. "Don't actually order their signature dish. I've had the pickled pike before, and it's best left as a name."
"What's a pike?"
"It's a fish, but it's not the pike you need to be worried about; it's the pickling. It ruins it, if you ask me."
"I'm... not in the mood for fish after all that sailing."
Leading Ivan by the hand, she followed Hammet and Bunza through dim, dank streets, gathering spots on her clothes from raindrops until they were evenly damp. At one point he stopped her by dropping her hand and pulling on her dress, and she looked at him. His eyes lingered over the Shaman's Rod for a moment before he looked up at her."
"Take?" he said, simply. Hama handed it to him, and he tottered after Hammet and Bunza.
Showing a bemused expression for no-one in particular, Hama followed.
The tavern was lively when they arrived. A musician was singing and playing an instrument she had never seen before, and much of the room was singing along. They ordered and ate, though not wholly undisturbed. The curiosity of strangers' eyes burned her cheeks and neck, but none approached her. She ate something green and leafy and shared a bowl of porridge with Ivan, while her older companions ate more heartily. A small portion of the gold they took from Contigo paid for this and lodging. The coins glinted in the firelight.
They were stolen, but the theft no longer mattered. This was a mere scrap from a trove belonging to what few priests of Anemos remained—a scrap which had seemed not worth spending to find a doctor or medicine for Mother. Had they cast her away? Had they not even cared to guard their own sanctum? The fear and fierceness which had once flooded her veins upon finding thieves as she searched for her brother now were dried to dust and blowing away. What remained was feeling beyond articulation.
"Hey," Hammet said, in between picking strings of meat from between his teeth. "What's eating you? You could crush a diamond between your teeth with your jaw set like that."
Hama blinked and sat back. "Nothing. Just... thinking about home."
Long ago, high on the slopes of the mountains, in a place lost to history, where the only gears and gnomons which counted its winters lay buried within it, a blacksmith cleaned his forge. With a great deal of scooping and scraping, he dredged ashes from its every corner and collected them in a pail. He had learned from the smith before him, who learned from the smith before that, and so on, sliding down the tree of life, generation by generation. A clean forge begat a hotter flame, which made his steel shine with strength. But the ash was troublesome; he always had too much. He gave some to the farmer, who used it to nourish his terraces. He gave some to the potter and painter, who used it as dye. Still more went to the soaper, who used it to make lye, but always his pail remained mostly full.
He had learned, also from the smith before, never to waste material; it would always be useful eventually. But as he filled barrels behind his smithy with ash faster than the painter and the potter and the farmer and the soaper and anyone else could use it, he despaired of stewarding his stockpile. But one day, a fierce wind stirred an idea in him. He carted his barrels to the edge of a cliff and poured them out, and each produced a cloud of ash, swept up into the winds and scattered until, to the blacksmith's eye on the cliffside, they disappeared. He felt a great relief in seeing his burden vanish, and he returned with his barrels to his smithy and continued his day's work.
But little particles of ash, no larger than the head of a pin, vaulted and swirled and soared and bounced on the winds. Some collected little droplets of water, which crystallized when the air was cold, and they fell upon the land or sea below when they grew too heavy for the wind to lift them. This went on many thousands of times. Some fell as rain, just over the valley below the blacksmith's home, joining the streams that carved their way to the sea, but not before wetting crop plots of carrots and wheat. Others fell as snow, dusting the tops of faraway hills just enough for animals to leave tracks, which in turn attracted the eyes of hungry hawks drifting overhead. More still remained in the sky, tossed about by stronger gusts and growing as they snatched up moisture from the air.
When they fell, they fell as fists, hurtling toward the earth in a flurry of blows. Unaimed and aimless, they fell upon rooftops and gardens and broad-leafed trees with strange fruits. They fell upon islanders and creatures of the shore. They fell far from where they started, and they fell where none expected them.
Someday, they would fall again.
Birdsong filled her ears and sunlight pried her eyes open. A white-robed man was standing over her with a bucket in his hands—ready to throw its contents, it seemed. He lowered the bucket to his side and held its handle with one hand. A small amount of water splashed over its rim. "Ah, now you awaken."
Hama rubbed the sleep from her eyes. "Is the gate open now?"
"Yes. Do you seek the Temple?"
"Yes," she said, standing awkwardly as her legs found their strength again. She held her pack in her hands. "I've come a long way."
The man's brow furrowed. "By how the sun has touched you, it seems so. How long a way?"
She opened her mouth to answer, but in considering the length of her journey, she wondered if anyone would believe it. It had been many weeks and countless miles. Perhaps it was better counted by storms weathered, meals forgone, or by the visions that seized her eyes. Perhaps it was better kept simple. "From far to the west, beyond the desert and the sea."
His eyes flashed wider in surprise.
"I didn't know to come here until reaching Kalay, and I had help, but it's just me now."
"You are quite intrepid for someone so young. Our Temple gates are always open to visitors during the day, but you... I feel Master Shui would like to speak with you directly."
"Who is Master Shui?"
The man simply turned and gestured for Hama to follow. She did so, and inside the walls she saw the buildings which yesterday had been mere smudges and smears of color from down in the valley. They were neatly rectangular, with flaring roofs of brightly-colored shingles. A few were two or three levels tall, shrinking in width with each successive tier. Where the exterior wall ended, a cliff face rose higher into the mountains, and a small waterfall cascaded thence, leading to a narrow, gentle stream that curved its way gently across the grounds, crossed by tiny bridges in some places and stepping stones in others. Some curves bulged into ponds, playing host to flowers, insects, and a frog or two.
A small group of people sat by one of these ponds, each with their legs crossed. Their arms were relaxed at their sides. Their palms were open and their eyes were closed. Their chests rose and fell at the same time. In a breath... out a breath.
"Master Shui is our guide. A mind is only capable of so much on its own, but with the right training, there are certain barriers that can be overcome."
"Barriers?" This was reassuring, although she didn't think Parisa would've misled her anyway.
"You will see," he said. "I would not want to deprive you of a proper introduction to the subject, and further explanation on my part would do precisely that."
"May I have your name, at least?"
"You may call me Brother Zhou. I am one of many monks here."
"I'm Hama."
"Hama... hmmm. Your name suits your appearance, as if you arrived strung to a kite."
"A kite?"
"I like to think of it as a pet bird you don't have to feed. If you are here when the winds are right, I will show you," said Brother Zhou as they arrived at the largest of the buildings within the walls. He set the bucket down on the steps and slid a door aside; it slotted neatly into the adjoining wall.
"Who is that you have with you, Brother Zhou?" asked a strong, feminine voice, with strains of age within its notes.
"Master Shui!" Brother Zhou slid the opposite door open as well and stepped inside. "This is a traveler who made camp outside our gate. She has given her name as Hama and she comes seeking the Temple."
"Does she now?" There was a smile in her voice as Hama stepped through the doorway. "I smell the desert on her from here."
Brother Zhou waved her in. The straw mats felt odd beneath her feet, and she hesitated a moment. At one end of the room—which was free of furnishings save for a small assortment of pottery, pillars supporting the ceiling, and a few unlit torches—she saw a woman who looked no more than perhaps a decade Mother's senior sitting cross-legged on the floor, with her arms at ease by her sides just as the people by the pond had been sitting. Her wheat-gold hair was braided and resting on her shoulder, and her robes, though similar to Brother Zhou's, had accents of green that were absent on his.
Hama swallowed as she looked at Master Shui's still-closed eyes. "Um, hello."
Master Shui tilted her head to one side. "Come closer, and let me hear your voice some more."
The straw mats yielded to Hama's feet as she approached. "Why do you have your eyes closed?"
"Ah, you are young. That heaviness in your walk is not a matter of your stature, then. Tell me, Hama, are you tensing your shoulders right now?"
Hama stammered in surprise, and made an effort to relax them.
"Brother Zhou, please take whatever personal effects are burdening our guest and prepare a space for her to rest later. I would like to speak with her alone and unladen."
"At once, Master Shui," he said, and drew in close to Hama. His voice dropped to a whisper. "Worry not. This is normal."
Hama handed her backpack to Brother Zhou. He left, and the doors hardly made a sound when he shut them.
"You asked why I have my eyes closed, and I shall ask you a question in return. Have you ever pinched your nose at an unpleasant smell? Or held your breath?"
"Yes, of course."
"Why?"
"Because it's... unpleasant? Like you said?"
"If it were merely unpleasant, you would simply walk away from it. That isn't always an option, though, is it?"
Hama considered this. While Ivan had always been good about signaling his needs, there had been a few incidents along their journey where... well, where his signals couldn't be met in time. The resulting cleanup in such cases had taken quite some effort, and she would hold her breath during the worst parts.
"You have an answer by now, surely."
"Because it's easier to focus on what you're doing?"
"It is not a question; it is an answer. But yes. I have my eyes closed because sometimes what they tell me is distracting. Irrelevant. At the worst of times, even outright wrong. But you know this, as anyone does who survives the Lamakan."
"The mirages..."
Master Shui's eyes opened so suddenly that Hama flinched. Her irises were different colors—green left, blue right. "Now I listen to my eyes, and they tell of the desert folk when they alight upon your cloak, but like many things they say, this is a distraction. I command them to look into yours, and they whisper that you are troubled. There are questions behind that rare violet gaze of yours, and as you have heard my words, I shall hear yours. Speak, and I shall listen; ask, and I shall answer."
In a breath, out a breath. Hama met Master Shui's steely gaze, and she started from the beginning, from Contigo.
They departed the Pickled Pike well after sunrise. Once they were far enough from Ost that they could no longer look back over their shoulder to see it, Hammet produced a cloth bundle from his pack. He grinned. "Breakfast on the move," he said, and revealed a large and hearty loaf of bread, crusted with seeds and nuts.
"I thought the kitchen was out of bread this morning," said Bunza.
"They were out because I got up early to claim one before the morning feeding frenzy."
"Thinking ahead for once! Hah! I like that."
Hama assumed Hammet meant 'steal', but with Hammet in possession of the gold, she contented herself to imagine he paid for it and refrained from asking. She took a piece that Hammet broke off for her and split it with Ivan, who walked close to her side.
Between bites, Hammet said, "It's thinking ahead we need more of, Bunza. You and I have scraped by from one adventure to the next, waiting for our luck and persistence to pay off."
"Or finally run out, as the case might be," Bunza said, smiling.
"Too true, but this time, our luck has arrived far ahead of our next endeavor. Indeed, she has been with us this whole time."
"Hama is our luck? I was under the impression you just found her a nuisance."
"Better a nuisance than a thief," Hama retorted, although without any real malice.
"Never mind all that," Hammet said, breaking off more bread to hand out. "She told me of a vision she had, and now that we have the privacy of the wilderness and the open road, we don't need to worry about anyone eavesdropping on our ideas."
"How long have you two been in cahoots on this? Here I've been thinking we're one bad step away from blundering into her mother's curse, and you're plotting and scheming together behind my back."
"No scheme is complete without you, my friend. What do you know of the east?"
"The east?" Bunza chewed on a particularly crunchy portion of the bread as he considered this. "I haven't even been to Bilibin, but I've heard their lord tolls the Goma Passage, and sometimes even has it closed off completely."
"East of the desert," Hama said. "I saw a vision of Hammet in the desert, carrying shining clothes unlike any I've ever seen. He was headed toward the sunset."
"Right. Shining clothes, and if he already has them, then he got them where he's coming from." He stroked his chin and curled some of his beard hair around a finger. "Okay, let's assume you're right. Why have we never heard of anyone trading in such treasure?"
"Because, as I said to Hama," Hammet said, "nobody travels that desert who values his life."
"There are people who live there, you know," Bunza replied. "And the occasional merchant caravan does cross it."
"I didn't say it was impossible; I said it was dangerous!"
"But it can be done!"
While they argued for a little while, Hama grappled with a sensation in her mind like trying to thread a needle with only one finger—a memory at the edge of recall, or a whisper of precognition at the limits of hearing. Ivan looked at her as she struggled to identify this feeling. He sensed how she felt, surely, but he was somehow more opaque to her than usual.
Mother had spoken many times of their descent from an ancient and powerful people, but surely their powers were not just whispers, not just tastes and smells and brushes with the unknowable. Surely someone could teach her what Mother had neither the time nor the health for. For every ray of light that uncovered some new clue or truth for her, a far more vast field of darkness lay just beyond its borders.
Hama picked up her brother to carry him, and he continued looking into her eyes. "When?" he asked, and she imagined he must be wondering the same of his own power.
She shrugged as she adjusted her grip on him. "Later." An unhelpful answer, but not untrue, with any luck. Her companions' argument had lapsed into silence, and all that remained between them was their footsteps upon the road. She glanced at Bunza. "You mentioned merchant caravans. Can't they go around the desert?"
"They could, if the lord of Bilibin is amenable, and if the roads through Bilibin's lands actually go to this place. Even if they do, it's likely a much longer trip, and longer trips are more costly," Bunza explained. "The part of Angara that Hammet and I hail from isn't much more than wilderness and farmland, sprinkled with quiet villages of little wealth and no significance. What you saw in Ost was opulence compared to Kalay, and even Ost pales in comparison to Tolbi. Trade goes elsewhere because elsewhere has money, and 'elsewhere' may very well be over the Great Eastern Sea."
Hama considered this. "So... if the only way to travel is dangerous, then the goods have to be really valuable?"
Bunza nodded.
"It's not being traded because nobody knows it's worth it," Hammet said as he tossed a particularly tough crust of bread onto the side of the road. "We do."
"We don't even know what this treasure is called, nor where to get it. We'd be staking everything we have on this vision just to go exploring for it, never mind actually finding a buyer for it."
Hama stepped around a hole in the road. "You said Tolbi is wealthy. Would someone there be interested in fancy clothes?"
Hammet and Bunza looked at each other in thoughtful surprise.
When Hama's tale dried out her mouth and set her to coughing, Master Shui brought her to another room with a low table surrounded by cushions and a tea set. She prepared a light and minty brew, and it soothed Hama's throat. Master Shui had few questions as Hama continued, but listened earnestly throughout. It was a strange experience—to speak so long without interruption was unheard of unless she was talking to herself in the wilderness—but a welcome one. There was no sparkle of hope or expectation in Master Shui's eyes as had been in Parisa's or Hammet's, nor a disappointed desperation as in Mother's. There was no wariness as in Ivan's, nor any tired concern as in Gulzar's. Though long, it wasn't so difficult a story to tell to Master Shui, and it got easier as she went on.
When Hama finished, there was a long pause, during which Master Shui poured more tea for the both of them. "There are measures by which I am an adept," she began. "To one who studies Alchemy, one who commands aspects of our world through the power of concentration, I bear some similarities. But this talent is not natural to me, nor to any others here; we were not born with it. I believe I know why you have come here, but do you?"
"Because this power is too important for me to have when I can barely control it. I need it, but I can't depend on it, and I'm afraid of what will happen if I never learn to use it."
"Why do you need it?"
"My mother saw things she didn't have the time to explain to me. Or... or the time to finish herself. And my brother is out there, and I don't know if I've done the right thing for him, leaving him with someone else, but—"
"Hama." Master Shui placed her open hand on the table. "Place your hand in mind."
"What?"
"Place your hand in mine. If you are to learn, you must see where you are lacking."
Hama obeyed. The echo of her voice breaking burned in her ears.
"Breathe deeply for me."
In a breath, out a breath. How could one see with tears rising in their eyes? She blinked.
Master Shui's eyes narrowed. "Your mother was your first teacher, but this is all you have learned?"
"I... I didn't practice enough."
"No, practice of this would have served you little. However great a seer your mother was, you won't sense anything when your body is in the way. Now breathe deeply again, and when your lungs are full, hold your breath for as long as I squeeze your hand."
In a breath. Master Shui's hand tightened around hers.
"When the ever-changing winds of your lungs stop, you hear your heart. You hear the room. My voice is louder, but so is the silence." She relaxed her hand. "Out."
Out a breath.
"Pause... and in," she said, and her hand tightened. "The tears fall away, but they are not replaced. If you control your breath, you control your body. If you control your body, you keep it out of your mind's way. You must do this before anything else. Out."
Hama exhaled. She thought of the ship with its towering sails, and how one could steer it if one controlled the wind.
Master Shui drew back her hand. "Continue in this way and listen. This matter of prophecy is beyond me because it is beyond you. You are as a hunter seeking wildcats when you can barely draw a bow. What you know of concentration is but a momentary effort, and what you know of meditation is worse. You say your family's powers come from the wind, but what of still air? What of absence, emptiness? You have learned to fan a flame, but not how to suffocate it. Do you swim with only your hands? Do you dance with only your feet?"
"No," Hama said, exhaling again. "But what should I do?
"Your mind hungers for answers and starves. Learn to see with all you have—harvest the fruits of all your senses!—and the pangs will quiet."