First steppe. Serib told Gadail of her journey as they walked, of the souls Iron-Chest and Ahlzvyr she had met, of grandclocks and willows strange.

  “Have you seen them?” she asked him, wishing he had good news. “Or the scarab, Enanti’Dromiya?”

  “To defend you was their choice, as The Spring-Sworn threatens not only herself through you.”

  “You know already all I’ve said?”

  “Much of it. Few words escape The Windlord’s ears.” Gadail smiled. “The Spring-Sworn reached you and so must have fought past The Stalker and The Sentinel. There is little we can do here in Ehl’yiteth for Hadaeon but press on, and see if the ending can mend the start. Has the Age of Greed not helped to ease our actions in the Age of Violence and Need? In this, are Time and Timelessness not so far apart?”

  When she did not answer, Gadail laughed to himself and Serib knew she had done well.

  ∞

  “How do you feel carrying the haft?” he asked, limping through Spring’s colours, the flatter steppe-land easier on his knees than the downhills had been.

  Serib could not help but grin slightly, leaning on her staff as though she was old: “Like a proper shaman, in image if not in might.”

  “That you are! Getting there.” He chuckled under his twiggy hair, where branches were sprouting from the roots and birds mistook him for a resting place. “Do not be in too much of a hurry to grow old, you have the rest of your life to be ancient.” He complained jokingly at his limp. “And worry not over The Hunter Lord nor The Sentinel, if death was dealt to them then it was their wish for their loyalties. A fine way.”

  As he spoke, perhaps to stray from thinking about Iron-Chest falling ‘for his loyalties’, Serib wondered what Gadail was like when he was young. He had not contended with a dire state such as Timelessness, but had he ever been foolish or afraid? Or wrong with all convictions otherwise?

  ∞

  She tried to remember all Haven and Hadaeon had taught her, roaming ‘home’ again in Ehl’yiteth. Hushing as to heed. No palm she needed on the ground to understand the plains underfoot, her eyes enough for the world’s mountain-peak scalp, memory and imagination for horizons she could not see. The herds and flocks nomads were transient for. Further she knew the deep places filled with water, the veining rivers and greatest pits where oceans lay or lands buried under sand and snow.

  ∞

  “Have you ever been afraid, master?”

  “I do not trust lightly.” He stated as his eyes searched the lands, the skies.

  ∞

  With totem in hand she thought the elements would be more open to her, though her troubled mind most was in the way.

  “If Earth still is strange to me, Fire already is next?”

  Old Gada’il nodded:

  “I cannot guide you in these arts further, as these are truths only you and Journey can teach. Though we must speak ahead, not even of your hex and its handling, but how such a thing came to be.”

  “A divide between Love and Reason.” Serib already knew from her suppose. “From Duality.”

  “And there you are yet, feeling you have returned with less! Very good. Moving rocks with our minds and sounding Thunder’s hammer-horns with a glare… Humanity’s weaponry is deadlier than our spells and summoning. Their machines and other methods. A shaman’s duty is more than such things. The part of your heart still doubtful is the same within Syrib, though in her it has grown beyond doubt into determination.”

  He paused.

  “Have I ever been afraid? In a girl so young as Syrib I saw terror; I saw Potential leading into darkness backwards and nowhere. And so The Spring-Sworn is the outcome of that! Of my misteaching her as I did not believe in her. No matter how gently one pulls, pulling a flower’s stem will not help it grow. In fear I forsook all I knew.”

  ∞

  Serib was haunted by The Dark Spirit’s eight gripping and grappling limbs, hexers each and all:

  “You cannot have done wrong, master. It must have been her misunderstanding, it must have been me.”

  Gadail knew another factor: what had Serib and Syrib been taught by their family before any shamanic training began? Though he dwelled not on that, again against all he knew, convinced he could have done better:

  “You are a lonely soul and cling to me, for I am all you have ever known. What friends have you allowed yourself to have? Could I have pushed you further away…” he kept the rest of his doubts to himself. “On our way to The Winged Wall or after I believe you spoke of origins. Well, I am not your roots, Serib. I am a mere leaf you met along the way and I owe more to you than you will ever owe me. Enjoy the quiet of Nature’s steppes for now. Soon after, ahead we will tea, chew our bark and rest; there are two souls for you to meet again.”

  ∞

  Thinking it was unlikely that Ahlzvyr and Iron-Chest were ahead given what Gadail had recently said, Serib could only guess or figure who those two souls might be. A fleeting smell of rust from a nearby vein rich with ore reminded her of Haven’s bloody heights, of the woodland ruins she had stalked with Ahlzvyr, the signs engraved of placename Orphan’age.

  “Origins?” She asked Gadail, though he only offered a smile, listening to the soft crisp of drier grasses underfoot, and winds strong without obstacle across the flat steppe of wildest flowers in sway, a land easier on the knees, they agreed.

  ∞

  Hooved herds there ran beyond counting thunderous, kicking dusty clouds into Horizon’s eyes. Birds migrated with those herds as the dust summoned up unsettled insects for them to eat, and their droppings made fertile the fields where spear-grass was dull, making diverse the heaps those herds had left, and on the dry winds of Summer’s-coming that brief waft was already gone.

  ∞

  Serib spotted and Gadail agreed - she had found a fine old tree bare of its leaves alone in the land. He knew the best spot to peel off its bark cured by Winter and best enjoyed in Spring, handing some to Serib and stuffing more between his own eager teeth. Their lips smacked hungrily, they gnawed on the tough bark squeezing out the smoky scent of home-again.

  ∞

  Gadail’s words were the hooded blanket of her journey. A typical apprentice after a while she cared little what he was saying, only that by his side she roamed, with each step proving it was no memory fleeting or Timeless trick, her return to Ehl’yiteth:

  “You do not recall when you were even younger, when your connection to this world was far less and your Farsight far more was spread. In legend and myth your interest. A power wild and true. When you first were in my care, I had to train you down from the clouds you were always in.”

  “You promised I’d return to them, ‘when I was ready’.”

  “And you will. And you will leave them again and return to them again, for The Human Fable is not one cycle of four stages, it is a road we walk until we no longer can. Most of us shamans, our Farsight is from our knowledge of Nature and Human Nature; of History. Your power was an older source, as those of the first shamans who had no history to know, when even the universe was fledgling and hatchling.”

  “Guessing.” Serib spoke with distance or sorrow.

  ∞

  “We predict and educate for we know the Seasons of all things, having fine memories. You were a true prophetess… seeing the could, would and should of different futures. Though to see so much was to see nothing; hearing everything you could not listen to anything. All taste all at once, overwhelmed with feeling. Potential without bound… and so you were coveted by many and by others.”

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  “Lady Fate.”

  “You remember, or you realise. Born under eclipses and the storms they summon with their gravity. An eclipse impossible for it was the same to all stars, from Timelessness now we know how. That is why you were brought to me by your parents - that we might temper what in you was raw. So it is with all children, shamanic children all the more! Before ascending the Greatmount Nain’mahuin with me to Haven-even-higher you knew all these things, and you have returned knowing half, leaving Syrib behind for now. She herself likely has forgotten half her things, swaddled by Grief and old fear.”

  “My parents.” Serib stared at the dusty green horizon and raced a few paces faster to keep up with Gadail.

  ∞

  He replied quickly, though with an answer well and long considered, Serib thought:

  “A dark pair! Shadows, barely loyal to Courtdom at all… loyal to you. We all have our darkness and I will not poison you against the dark spirit in your heart - you must be wiser than that, as must I. You will need to decide yourself when The Spring-Sworn tempts you again, if you will side with Truth or Falsehood or go altogether on your own path, as your sister intended for you. Seeing you caught between extremes.”

  “My sister… you’re right, master. My mind was cloudy in Haven, back on the ground I am remembering things. My sister’s partner, I’m remembering him.”

  “Ha, that leal sort. The Prince of Once-ago. Well - I think if your sister told him to come out of his shadows and stare himself blind at the sun, he would do it. I believe Courtdom’s ways fail few souls, The Rabid as they are named. He may well have been one of them, but your sister is all goodness he has ever known. A candle to follow in the dark not leading to any greater light; content until it goes out in whatever ending.”

  ∞

  Serib frowned, her innermost thoughts a tangle. She strode with Gadail’s stride and chewed on. He spoke closer to her, walking through his limp ignored:

  “Knowing more, are you still fearful to take my place, when I as all leaves and flowers wilt my last?” he said, yet a small sapling was growing from his twiggy hair. “Or do you see flames burning beyond your own?”

  “Well, who would want to lose you, master?” Serib chewed. “And who could fulfil all you do for Ehl’yiteth?”

  Because their journeys together as master and apprentice had taken them to so many corners of ancient Ehl’yiteth, Serib had a sense that Old Gadail, Lord of Wind, did more for the world than his fellow Lords of Earth, Fire and Spacious.

  “What are you almost getting at, hmm? Whatever it is, I agree with you.” Gadail chuckled. “My master was far more a power of might and wisdom than I am, and I too was fearful. And my master’s master before. And so. As we distance ourselves from Falsehood and Greed’s age dawns… we turn back to see.” He replied through his own smacking and chewing. “This is what it is to ‘bear hammer’; our weapons that both make and break; we mirror Truth and Nature. Never so simple as a sword. Daggers and axes can be good as tools; to be a hammer-hand is best, the hands that heal. It is our sort that destroyed the old customs with our hammers and remade what was worthy of salvaging; the young do not believe when I tell them there was much our hammers could not break. To see you have chosen a staff…” He stretched out his clay-armoured arms in the sun, taking a moment to inspect a mucky pond of the steppe, where weary nomads had gathered their tents after a sky burial, offering the passing shamans their tea which was kindly refused.

  “If only!” Gadail called to them. “We must press on!”

  ∞

  “I would wish my duty on no soul, certainly not on you, but there is no path more worthy than Truth, wherever it takes us.”

  “Do we have a choice at all over what Truth does with us?” Serib quickly asked.

  “We can influence, guide our pulls and pushes. We can shift the weight and emphasis. If I throw you a pebble underhand do you choose to catch it or is Instinct’s reflex to recoil from the snake behind the glass no matter its thickness? As Arwin over and over, and not once could he stand his ground. If you can no longer help a friend with only themselves to blame, and your life is agony here to there weighing whether to leave or stay, and when at last you turn your back was that more a choice than fumbling after the pebble or flinching at the sight of fangs? When it comes to it - all we can do is choose to face Truth bravely or turn our back to it, and find it is all around us without our regard. And have mercy! Should perdition be yours if the pebble slips through your fingers? If you turn away from the dead? Have mercy and grace therefore…”

  Though Old Gadail had said he did not wish to ‘poison her’ against the dark spirit Minim’Syrib, it was clear to Serib where her master’s loyalty was; with Truthdom and Courtdom much the same as Iron-Chest and Ahlzvyr.

  ∞

  “On whichever path you choose your fear will fade dark against the brightness of your courage. Even if it takes a Spring or few! My own journey was certainly not a straight from one point to another, even now I am learning. The weight of a lesson can lessen as we wander, or overstay ourselves, and we must retrace to relearn. You will see. Imagine not this preferred future in your mind, project it out here. Have conversations with yourself if you are lonely - what does that future look like? What can you do now to make Fancy real, if not in the span of our life then can those to come take up our torches to keep going in this long dark? And how many have left torches for us? Truth is all around us and within us, our actions become our truths, and all this with human thought begins. It is in this beautiful simplicity that all potential lies. Do not wait nor wish for what could be - when all around you and Now could be better than it is, if only you would try. And what if we all tried together rather than against? What need have we of Fancy then? Is there any greater legacy to leave than our immortality eschewed? Eternal - not in remembrance.” He pointed to another murky pond nearby, also crowded with nomads, and soon master with apprentice stood beside the still waters. “You have been on a spirits’ journey and better know now of such things, halved as you are. Imagine me, a hanging flower drooped forever, until I am a stale pool unchanged and unchanging. Never able to pass on when all is done. Imagine a gust with nowhere to come from and nowhere to go.”

  Sunlight shimmered in the pool and Serib saw clearly what oily muck had formed there, good for washing off a journey’s dirt though unfit to drink or clean one’s wounds. Toads and others seemed happy enough milling about in it, so she pointed at them smirking, as though to answer.

  “You are not a toad.” Gadail replied blankly, poorly hiding a laugh: “I might as well be.”

  ∞

  After their tea, the nomads were sipping clear waters gathered from further streams, waving off to master and apprentice. Serib was thirsty and wished they had stayed, her lips dry and sore. In nearby woodlands a great mass of vultures could be heard, remnants perhaps of another or the same sky burial. Gada’il moved on with Serib across the steppes, passing by berried bushes and fallen trees once-bloomed. Those that had and had not survived Winter’s ways. His words precise:

  “Now, Before, After, wherever Water is - it fills and flows cleansing. Winds blow the moveless seasons moved. Flame destroys, and dogged seeds rise from ashes Earth cannot keep. This is Nature, and we are Human Nature. You must repeat these things to yourself, for when you are Master you will repeat them to others, yourself among them. Humans lose their way from Nature easily, especially us most attuned. We become sure of ourselves. There is always hope and courage - we can guide them home as we guide ourselves. Courtdom will come to seek your guidance as it comes to seek mine or call with horn and bell that I may answer. A dire age that Haven did not heed mine, though there is yet more to see and perhaps I am no longer worth listening to; out of touch in Timelessness. Very possible.”

  “I will try. I will be ready.”

  “Oh, you will?” Gadail huffed. “Better your first answer! It is alright.” He hastened to keep her from being disheartened. “All this I will leave to you, and you will not be ready, for who could ever be ready but a controlling fool thinking themselves ready, all the while not at all? And-oh you’ll stumble through it at first, and even old as I you’ll make wise mistakes, and you’ll repeat yourself as I do! Forgetting what you’ve said. But you will make a fine guardian spirit, a bridger of divides between, and in the end an ancestor. Yes, that might is yours.”

  “I want to… but I am afraid.” Serib leaned more on her tall totem as she walked, grass hushing underfoot as she meditated on her divided heart. “Is there any might or wisdom that can cure me of my fear?”

  ∞

  “Of course you are afraid! Just as I was, to lose my master and become one of The Four Lords of Ehl’yiteth, though here I am, myself a withered leaf in prime, a crinkling pleasure to step over on Autumn’s walks, the sort of thing a child of awe refuses to throw away.” He giggled at her. “A surprising sight in Spring.” He laughed again, narrowing his gaze at her and she too could not help but smirk, though even sadder than before. “Those Heirs and others in High Courtdom will come to you and the other Lords for aid, asking how best to serve Truthdom. And in ideal you will only ask them questions, to help them understand - never once will you need to swing your staff. Alas!”

  Serib looked at him limping, and did not want for him to be in such pain endured. She shared:

  “Fear visits us, and we must ask what we fear most, and go with that.”

  “Right you are! And go with that.”

  She stepped closer seeing his struggle, and short as she was in compare, supported him with her strength.

  ∞

  Serib was all the more afraid as memory broadened beyond her vision, the smoky farbark helped her remember: an adventure. Farbark crumbled over soup she saw: a strange thing to do. Meditating on this as they walked she realised:

  “I have travelled with my sister before… since I first met you. When?”

  “You strayed far a runaway, apprentice - too close to Lady Fate. A spider’s trap Corridoor was sprung and you were snatched into a tale not your own, away from History. Here on the steppe is a better place to feel deeply, and answer your own questions.”

  He showed Serib certain runes on a nearby tree, infinity their names, carved long ago and filled over with moss. Glowing as Serib neared it.

  “Let us rest here in the somewhat shade.” He sucked a chip of farbark from between his teeth, his brow bright with sweat. “Spring is showing us its Summery side.”

  ∞

  A while they sat relieved of the journey’s weight. Old Gadail turned mud into a soft pot and mugs with water from his totem-hammer flowing, fired them to become harder clay in the heat of his shamanic will. The nettles and berries needed for a late-Spring tea too were refuging in the shade.

  ∞

  They waited for it to cool, alas in Timelessness their tea stayed hot, so Serib made jokes about it being chilly for a lighter mood. As though being listened to alone out on the steppes, ‘fortune’ tweaked its threads or tunes and the two shamans sat happily, drinking chilled tea in the shade. They napped under the slowly swelling heat. Master and apprentice together chewed farbark sharing little words, for there is no finer thing to do while thinking deeply.

  When Serib woke the sun had not moved, her wrists sore with bruises from where The Spring-Sworn had grabbed her. Gadail was still asleep.

  ∞

  “Have we rested enough?” She asked, moving towards the rune.

  “We have.” He did not move.

  To her curious touch the tree’s rune shone and quick as a bird felled by an arrow the sun fell likewise until Sunset’s clear twilight streaked the remaining clouds with pink-then-indigo fire.

  “Time is hurt.” Serib eyed their surroundings changed.

  “Murdered or in hiding.” Gadail mumbled with caution, rousing from where he lay.