Guardian of Heaven and Earth
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Kanbal
Prologue: Light on the Snow
The moon shone bright in the evening sky. The herder Yoyo looked out at the snow cast in shadow on the tips of the Yusa mountains. He blew into his hands to keep them warm.
It was the beginning of winter now. The herder people of Kanbal were always frantically busy from autumn going into winter; there was a sense of pressure like an advancing wave to complete all their tasks before the land slept over the cold season.
But this year, the land had not slept at the onset of winter. It was still awake: vibrant and alive. The elder of the herder people, Toto, pointed to all kinds of evidence for this.
“The stone of the caves is still wet! And the rock is still warm; can’t you feel it?”
Most of the herders had nodded and shaken their heads at such words, but the older ones realized that what he was saying was true. The air was usually dry and cold in winter, but this year, every advancing breeze smelled like spring--even underground, deep in the caves.
I wonder why Kassa doesn’t smell it.
Yoyo recalled his friend’s face. Kassa was not a herder, but one of Kanbal’s clan people. He’d been born above the caves, and that was where he lived and worked. The herder people lived in deep in the heart of the mountains, but people like Kassa were different. Kassa’s family lived closest to the herder people out of all of Kanbal’s clans, but Kassa did not share any of the herder’s capabilities. When Yoyo had asked him to put his nose to the stone of the caves to smell it, Kassa had tried, but then laughed. He couldn’t smell anything.
I guess only the herder people can smell the stone. Why is that? Should we worry about it?
Toto and the Musa clan head were in frequent contact. If the herder people did discover anything dangerous or worth reporting, Yoyo was certain that Toto would send a message. But Yoyo was concerned for Kassa. He wanted him to be able to tell that there was trouble before he heard it from his clan head.
Well, there are some things that he tells me that I just don’t understand, either. I guess our peoples are just too different...but I really wish we could understand each other.
Yoyo would be twenty soon. He had his full adult height, but the herders were not a tall people. It bothered Yoyo that his people’s short stature was so often looked down upon. The herders might be small, and they might not be descended from Kanbal’s clan lords, but they were as tough as the mountains themselves.
Truthfully, Yoyo had always wanted to be a King’s Spear. He was talented with his weapon, but he wasn’t qualified for the position: he wasn’t part of a clan. Nothing had ever become of his dreams.
I imagine the King’s Spears are just as worried as I am right now.
Yoyo removed his leather boots and walked barefoot through the caves. He wanted to call Kassa, but calling people who were not herders from within the caves was not something that was generally done. He was trembling fiercely and couldn’t calm himself; he clenched his fists. If the elders could see him now, they’d probably tease him for being frightened like a little child.
He had felt the same sense of dread when the other elders had laughed with Toto about the land staying awake this winter. He had only just been married last spring, but he was old enough to know that there was something very strange and wrong going on.
The herders were mountain people; the mountains’ heart and their hearts beat to the same rhythm. When one herder felt anxiety and unease at the level of the mountain’s gutrock, they all felt it. Yoyo was scared. He didn’t know why, but he was absolutely terrified.
Winter, please keep your eyes and ears open--at least until I reach the cave.
Yoyo spent his winters at Toto’s large, warm cave with all the young herders. Toto’s cave was his family’s, but he owned several around it as well; when the herders gathered there over winter, the caves became like a small town. Yoyo was hoping to share one of these caves with a friend.
Is it just me, or has it gotten a lot colder?
He met his friend along the way. He could hear the man’s teeth chattering as he walked behind him. It was so cold in winter that no fire would take in the caves, even if the hyoulu, guardians of the darkness, would permit one. The winter chill cut through Yoyo all the way to the bone.
Yoyo and his companion stopped to eat some yuccal leaves, then rubbed their limbs and extremities with sap excreted from other leaves, which warmed them up somewhat. Yoyo still felt like his hands were made of ice.
“We should probably put yuccal sap on our noses and stomachs, too,” Yoyo said.
His friend turned toward him and chuckled. “Do you really think that would help us warm up? My stomach and nose are both completely covered up, but they feel like they’re red from the cold.”
The two of them laughed a little, shivering. There was a high sound like a whistle coming from somewhere nearby. It was still dark, but the closeness of the whistle meant that they were nearing a cave entrance.
Yoyo had been traveling south for all this time, surrounded only by mountains and snow. When he emerged from the caves into a vast and starry clear space, he gasped.
Among all the bright stars, there was a line of particularly bright ones. They were moving: moving through the sky like a trail of light. The whistle sounded again, and it seemed to Yoyo that the bright lights in the sky were following its echo and drifting directly toward the sound.
The whistling echoed down the southern slope. The lights moved, illuminating the mountains and the sky like a beacon. There were so many that Yoyo couldn’t count them all.
When he turned around, he saw that the path of light in the sky continued for a far distance. The twinkling, shining lights were as white as snow. Yoyo heard a faint sound like bells and the gentle humming of riran insect wings as the line of light drew ever closer. He looked down at the southern slope leading down the mountain.
Yoyo had rubbed some togal on his eyes to see in better in the dark; using large amounts of the plant was poisonous. Short-tailed weasel riders were faintly visible below him, bearing torches. The herders called them Chil Kal, Little Brothers. The Kanbalese called them Titi Lan. Yoyo had never seen so many gathered in one place before. More emerged from their caves in the mountainside as Yoyo watched. They faced the south all together and at once, like they were celebrating some kind of ceremony.
Titi Lan usually made their lamps and torches out of delicate stalks that were light enough for them to hold. Today, there were so many flickering flames on the mountain slope that they looked like feathers on a bird's wing. The sound of the ririn bug's wings susurrating grew louder in Yoyo's ears. He could see the Titi Lan clearly; they appeared pale and astonished--or afraid. What on earth had happened?
"Are all those Chil Kal?" Yoyo's companion asked. He had emerged from the cave and was looking down at the fantastical sight.
"Can't be," Yoyo whispered. "There are too many."
The Titi Lan were a reclusive people who hunted in small groups by the light of the moon. They were considered the closest creatures to the Mountain King, having a better understanding of him than even the herders possessed. They stood on the slope below, facing south with their torches held high, and did not give Yoyo or his companion so much as a passing glance.
The sound of bells grew louder, as did the whispering sound of a swarm of insects in flight. Yoyo covered his ears and saw his companion do the same. He felt dizzy, like he was about to fall. He gritted his teeth and planted his feet. His head hurt like it was being torn open from the inside.
"We have to run!" he yelled to his companion. "Get down the mountain, before we go insane!"
They fled like fleet-footed hyo rabbits down the mountain slope, kicking up snow as they went. the deafening roar of competing sounds gradually receded. They hadn't run far before Yoyo felt something warm and soft brush against his face. It was like being suspended in sun-warmed water in the middle of summer, only even warmer than that. Yoyo smelled water, too, and its smell was different from the clear cold streams of winter. He could almost sense fish and other living things suspended in this mysterious water, as if they were swimming near him--but he couldn't see them.
When he looked down, he saw that his body was almost entirely submerged in warm, crystalline blue water: as blue as gemstones. The water level in Noyook had risen very high: all the way up the mountain to here. He could scarcely keep his footing on the rocky slope because he was so close to floating. Even his head was submerged. When he looked up, he saw the mass of migrating bright lights through the water's haze. They were moving from the south to the north. They looked like they were swimming.
Yoyo and his companion remained suspended in Noyook's water for what felt like a long time, seeing these confusing and terrifying visions. When the water finally let them go, they sprinted all the way down the mountain to their home village.
There is a strong sense of foreboding in this chapter... I wonder what is to come.
ReplyDeleteThis is a darker one than the last book...things don't always turn out the way you expect, but the end of the series is reasonably happy. :) There's a lot of combat in the chapters coming up.
DeleteNice! Will be looking forward to it!
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