to leave the city and his lady’s side, knowing he could never return should he set foot upon the World, but he did as he was told.
The boy found Kimber’s hiding place and pleaded with her to go, but the Good Lady soon found them. Fearful of failing in the mission Faera had given him, he attempted to talk the Good Lady out of her plans to kill the other rel. He loved her greatly and knew that she loved him too and was confident that she would see reason.
She did not. She sent him flying so far away that the sky split open and swallowed him up before he could fly beyond its borders and she sent Kimber and Cho and the kite off toward the heart of the killing desert unprepared, trusting the suns and thirst and the terrorous creatures and people of the sands to finish them off, leaving Bre’et and Kipi alone in the World.
The White Rel returned and reigned for many, many years as she had, until the boy she had thrown away returned. But that is another Tale.
An Exceedingly Brief Tale of Flight
‘Cross the skies they endless tore
Heaven-blessed with wings to soar.
- “The Grey Birds’ Tale”
The kite sped upward, thrusting Kimber’s stomach into her feet and then stopped, straining as if at the end of a tether, launching it back up into her throat. A moment passed as the kite floated motionless in the howling wind and blinding fog and then something snapped below them and they were granted irrevocable freedom.
The World spun. Kite and riders flew out of control.
It banked and whipped Kimber back and forth. She could not look up or down, but squeezed her eyes shut so tightly that it felt as though they might fall back into the cavern of her skull from the pressure. She thought the wind shrieked but it might have been her. It might have been Cho if she was even up there.
Her arms burned with the effort of holding tight, her legs flailed for purchase. She slipped down the length of the rope, sliding on the blood oozing from her palms. Her stomach surged.
She managed to get her legs around the rope, bringing a halt to her downward slide. Skyclaps crashed somewhere close, so loud that all Kimber’s will went into not letting go to cover her ears. Howling currents raced past her, up, up, up.
Don’t die. Not again.
The words bounced in her head from somewhere deep but could find no purchase among the whirling thoughts of ‘hold on’, ‘hold tight’, ‘don’t be sick’, ‘so cold’, ‘can’t breathe’, ‘can’t breathe’.
The wind gentled. The kite soared, its wings fluttering with a noise like a bird’s.
Kimber opened her eyes but still could not bring herself to look down. All around, the fog held them in its tender grip and the kite glided above, its rider unseen. They seemed to float there forever in the silent whiteness before the fog finally gave way and unveiled an endless vista of jild that shone as bright as the yellow sun.
Kimber opened her mouth to call to the Elanaite.
And the wind died.
And the kite fell like a stoneseed pod.
Tales of Shadows
Having felt this greatest loss,
A bridge of shadows do I cross
Through the darkness to the light
‘Twixt the boundaries of sight
And escape this pain, this grief,
‘Cross this World hewn from belief.
- Almarai Lullaby
He who is Bre’et looks up and cannot find the sky and cannot find the white rel who smells of stormfire and cannot find her. She is gone and he waits to fade away but he does not. He understands. He is a part of the World now because she has named him. Because she believes in him. He is unsure if this is for the better.
The fog rolls away, skimming on the river’s surface to travel down to the sea, leaving the surging meadowlands quiet and empty. Bre’et has never known this being alone. Now he wishes he could just be out of the World again. It is easier. It is not this empty feeling. It does not hurt.
He is assaulted by noise. From the hole in the earth, a thin rolling yowl makes Bre’et wish for the hurtful silence. It is a long, miserable sound of pain, framed by the smell of blood.
The pachaak, slicked red and mewling, lies in the hole. It was crushed by the white wings when Bre’et charged the boy. It is a pathetic sight and Bre’et turns away. The pachaak continues to cry its pain but it struggles to its feet. One of its legs twists at a strange angle and it limps as it walks outside, squealing piteously with each step, its packs throwing it off balance.
Bre’et does not know what to do. He stares up into the sky, wishing the creature would go away but it waddles close to him and lifts its massive head up as well, crying to the suns. It wants the small women who smells of stone and talks to walls. It is lost without her and for a moment, Bre’et feels kinship with another creature. Warily, he puts his beak to the little beast’s head and licks the thickly-scaled skin there. The pachaak shudders and pulls away at first, but then it freezes in mid-motion.
There is a sound that is not natural from any animal. It is hard and sharp and high, like glass suddenly freezing. Bre’et has heard this sound in his time in the White Lands, the chink-chink-chink of crystal. The pachaak grows rigid and its scales change from their normal muddy green to the bright color of greenspark as it transforms from living flesh to gemstone. Sunslight shines across the jewel beast’s skin.
It opens its mouth in a final cry and shatters into innumerable pieces. Its pack drops amongst the shards, spilling things broken by the impact inside the dirt hole, and light scintillates across the shards but fails to warm Bre’et. He is cold deep inside where no light will ever penetrate. He is once more alone in the World.
He who is Bre’et does to himself what he would never allow others to do to him. He pushes his head beneath the straps of the lonely pack and gets it onto his back. He is no more than a beast of burden now, a pack animal. But if he does not look back at it, it could be the weight of her on his back, comforting, laughing. It is not but it is a good dream.
He who has been named Bre’et turns to go but then turns back. Leaning down, he takes the largest of the greenspark shards in his mouth. He drops it into the open pouch of the pack and then bends to the task of burying the rest of the little beast’s remains. He does not wonder why an animal should turn to jewels. He has seen stranger things in the World. He is one of them himself, a black Child that cannot be. He has heard this from Maan many times before but, like her, he has decided to be for as long as he can. For as long as it takes to find her.
She has disappeared into the sky and he does not know where to go. With nothing to point him in the right direction, he turns to follow the eastward flow of the river, looking for a way to cross that includes no swimming. Bre’et does not like swimming.
The suns look down and warm his back but he ignores them, as he always has, and makes his own way in the World.
****
Any listener may have come to realize that there are many, many Tales in the World. There are the Shared Tales, stories known by all, the history of the World and its Goddessi, Tales that must be known by all for the World to keep its shape. But every corner of the World has its own Tales as well, unshared and unknown to the far off reaches of the land and its peoples. While it may seem a pity to keep these narratives quarantined from the larger World, a dutiful listener such as yourself will soon realize the wisdom in this.
One such story, begun and kept in the eastern part of the great Kalrathi, is that of a young Sanaiian girl.
The