《Earthdawn - Emergence》


 Chapter 1: The Doors

    It was finally time.


    This would be the day that the doors of their home opened and their people returned to the world above. Op¡¯skith bubbled with impatience as they waited for the elders to unseal the wards on The Doors. They had delayed for months in deciding to open The Doors at all and now some of them seemed determined to drag their feet in the very process of unsealing them. He wanted to run over to them and demand to know what was taking them so long-


    ¡°See here, it says priming the seventh axial line along the second partition will rupture the fire-flow in the ward! Are you trying to get us killed?¡±


    ¡°No, that word¡­ where is it¡­ Ah! Look at this, that phrase is under the contextual indicator of ¡®safety¡¯. The correct translation should be ¡®restrain¡¯ here, You¡¯re thinking of this section, the one on defense activation, where they use that word but under the indicator for ¡®protection¡¯!¡±


    ¡°Fine, so long as I don¡¯t need to be within a hundred feet while you incinerate yourself and-¡±


    -But maybe it wasn¡¯t them. Perhaps it really was that complicated a process and he would just be butting in where he had no business being. He didn¡¯t understand anything about the wards. None in their kaer had the talent for weaving the threads of magic so all they had to go on were centuries old documents, from the time that the kaer had been sealed, written in a language only a few of them could read at all. Knowledge lost to time.


    The Doors themselves looked the part of creations out of time. Where the walls of the kaer were grey or brown, natural stone carved out and polished into a place to live. The doors were something else entirely. The milky-white stone looked unnatural. It was so smooth as to be slick, and it reflected light like a mirror. More than that, it was overlaid with thin lines of bright gold and dark blue in elaborate patterns. The entire construction spoke of wisdom and power beyond anything else he knew. He had spent many hours tracing the intricacies of those patterns with his eyes. The curling and overlapping lines seemed to draw the eye in deeper to their pattern, beyond the reach of sight. He sometimes felt as if he could glimpse the world beyond in their weaving, but they were quite impassable. These were the unbreakable barrier that had kept them safe for six hundred years. These were the gateway that would return them to the surface and the world above. All they had to do was figure out how to open them.


    He sighed, and turned back to the rest of the Vanguard. They had all been up early and eager for the opening but eagerness was drifting into impatience as the hours passed. Well, they had waited their whole lives for this, what was a few more hours? There was a whole world out there, just out of reach. Just waiting for it to be safe enough for them to return. ¡­Or rather for it to be too dangerous to wait any longer. With yet another thriving stone failing their food supply would no longer be sustainable in a matter of months and so, like it or not, it was time to open the Doors. The choice between unknown danger or a slow starvation was no choice at all. Some were suspicious that the stone had been sabotaged. Some had even accused him of doing so. He could almost understand why they would think that. He was outspoken in favor of opening the doors. And known to act with more passion than reason. And thought to be overly violent by some. But he would never have done something so evil as putting their food supply at risk, no matter the reason. He could understand why they might have thought that. Now. In retrospect. In the moment, he had been angrier than he ever had been in his entire life. He very well might have beaten the old man to a bloody pulp for his accusation, if his chaida hadn¡¯t been there to calm him. And to tear into that idiotic coward filth of the deepest pit of- ¡­Tear into him with words of course. His chaida always seemed to know just what to say to get people on his side or to put people in their place. Op¡¯tan seemed to hold half the circle of elders in the palm of his hand while pulling the strings of the other half.


    By contrast, Op¡¯skith had never been much good at solving his problems with words. He was too full of passion that seemed to push others away rather than draw them in. Ready to start a fight rather than get someone on his side. Op¡¯tan always seemed to be a bit disappointed in him for that. Of course, Op¡¯tan was proud that Op¡¯skith had emerged as an adept, there were few enough among their people. But he couldn¡¯t help thinking that his chaida would have preferred the talents that manifested to be more productive or impressive like Jata or Saij rather than those of a blade-wielding maniac. He had never said anything like that, but Op¡¯skith could sense it. Few approved of the warriors, adepts or not, for wasting their time swinging ancient blades around rather than finding something productive to do, but they accepted them as both an ancient tradition in preparation for the emergence and as a necessary outlet for youthful bravado. Of course, that would be different from now on.


    Rull sat back beside him, leaning on an arm. ¡°So, should we go for lunch? Looks like this is going to be a while.¡±


    Op¡¯skith turned to him, smirking slightly. ¡°What, and leave our charges unprotected while we eat soup?¡±


    ¡°Charges? Are we supposed to be defenders now? I thought the plan was to head up the river and start a pirate gang!¡±


    The pair chuckled, but drifted back into silence as Saij joined them and settled nearby. He was a troll, like Rull. Saij was the smaller of the pair by a fair margin, but was still a head above Op''skith. T''skrang were not renowned for their bulk. Even if you were to include his long tail and the scaled frills on his head, and also ignore the curling horns of the trolls, Op''skith could barely match the height of even a short troll. And he was large, as t''skrang went. He was nearly six feet tall and was covered in heavy muscle under scarred scales, both earned from years of training. And he *still* had to use tricks to match the raw force his comrades had as their birthright. The three nodded to one another in greeting as Saij settled beside them. He waited a moment before speaking. ¡°So, what do you want to find out there?¡± It was a familiar topic, worn smooth from long use, but now imparted with new significance. Op¡¯skith was the first to respond. ¡°I want to see the Serpent River and the great lakes. Or perhaps the great plains. And the Twilight Peaks.¡± He drifted off. He felt a little silly. Why not plan to find the Heart of the Wyrmwood or sail over the Sea of Fire while he was at it? But the other two didn¡¯t show any sign of amusement or mockery as they nodded in response.


    A moment later Rull answered as well. ¡°I hope there are people out there. Tasin and Sorit should be nearby. I want to know what a city with a thousand people could be like. Or just what buildings look like out there. They must be so different. I hope they¡¯re not¡­¡± He left the last part of it unsaid. The trio drifted into silence for a long moment. It was Saij¡¯s turn, but he seemed completely content to wait. The awkwardness grew as the silence drew out but it never seemed to touch him. Rull fidgeted, and then spoke again, his voice lowered. ¡°Do you think they¡¯re still out there? Will we have to fight them?¡± He left the unspoken question hanging in the air. The question that had been hanging over them since the decision had been made to go out. The question of whether they could fight the things that might be out there. The Horrors were supposed to be gone after all this time, but so was magic itself and if that hadn¡¯t happened then how wrong were they about the Horrors? Their ancestors had buried themselves to hide. The legendary heroes of ages past had run and hidden from these things and they might still be out there.


    Saij remained quiet a moment longer, letting the thought hang in the air between them. Op¡¯skith got the odd impression of a swordsman holding their strike, waiting for the perfect moment to land a clean victory. Then he spoke.


    ¡°There might be some. The most powerful should be gone, but there might be some. It¡¯s a whole new world out there, and there will be dangers as surely as there will be wonders. Mountains and forests and cities waiting for us to find them somewhere out there. A grand adventure!¡± He clapped each of them on the shoulder before continuing in a more subdued tone. ¡°Just remember, adventures are dangerous, but we¡¯ll have every strong arm in the kaer behind us out there. We¡¯re in this together.¡± He gave a winning smile and made sure to meet each of their eyes before rising¡­ and moving to the next cluster of the vanguard.


    Saij wasn¡¯t being particularly subtle today, but from the nervousness Op¡¯skith could hear in the hubbub he supposed that Saij had a lot to get done. No one was sure what they might find out there and they were worried about it. The best they could determine from the maps, they should come out just in the foothills of the Stormfall Mountains, near the River of Seeds, which they could follow to where several other settlements would emerge. But would those settlements be ready to help them yet? Would there be wild animals or even lesser horrors on the way? It would be much safer to wait until they had some sure sign, or someone came to open their doors from the outside. The kaer hadn¡¯t so much agreed to go out as much as they had agreed that they couldn¡¯t wait any longer. Some thought they should prepare for a world still overrun by horrors. Others thought they should prepare to deal with the cities and kingdoms of the world before. If they¡¯d needed to agree on exactly what to be ready for then it would have taken another decade to open the doors. In the end, they¡¯d agreed that someone needed to go out and see what there was, and that task was for the vanguard.


    For all the days they¡¯d lived down here, the vanguard had been the dissatisfied youth or the unrealistic dreamers. Fools who spent their time thinking about the surface before they, inevitably, settled themselves to the real life they could make in the kaer. They were tolerated as an outlet for youthful bravado, and out of tradition naturally. Of course, many more than they few had trained themselves to fight or explore with the Vanguard in the past, but those were older now and settled. Their skills were rusty and their families meant they had more to lose. So it came down to the Vanguard. A handful of trolls and obsidimen armed with weapons and armor older than they were¡­ and one t¡¯skrang. The imbalance wasn¡¯t out of any deliberate exclusion, of course, but learning to fight hand to hand is a painful enough experience when your opponent doesn¡¯t have three hundred pounds of weight, two feet of height and hide like leather on their side. Not to think of the madness of breaking your hands against the rock-like body of an obsidiman. One would need to be exceptionally stubborn to ignore that. Or have reasons to keep going that couldn¡¯t be beaten out of them so easily.


    The anticipation of the opening felt like it was chewing a hole out of Op¡¯skith from the inside. An open ''sky'' instead of a stone ceiling, a place without walls, space to run, fresh air and a world that stretched beyond vision. He could hardly imagine half of what he had been told was out there, but he still loved to try. All his life, it had been just beyond those Doors. Sometimes, he almost thought that he could feel the faintest breeze coming from them carrying the scent of new life. But there was danger as well. They had been safe down here for centuries, but as soon as the Doors opened that time of safety would come to an end. It was exciting. It was terrifying. Everyone could feel it. It was in the air. Some were more hopeful, some were more fearful, but everyone was a little of each.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    ¡ª-------


    As it happened, they did wait through lunch. And longer still, into the bottom of the cycle. They spent the time in idle chatter about what they might find or about the simple business of the kaer, but without much substance to any of it. The anticipation was too great to do otherwise.


    The moment came without warning. One moment the elders were chattering and poking at The Doors as they had been for hours, the next moment The Doors seemed to shudder as a wave of pressure and sound rippled outward from them. Every light crystal in the kaer flickered as the wave passed by, reaching to every corner of the kaer. A long moment passed as they all stared. The brilliant white sheen of the doors seemed dull now. The glittering lines were faded. And then the blank shock turned to surprise and fear all at once as it seemed every person in the kaer burst into action at once. It was chaos as people scrambled away or tried to draw weapons and clean up their possessions all at once. At least three different elders tried to take charge of the situation before Saij''s bellow cut through the noise. "The Vanguard will form ranks and stand ready! All others will clear the area before the door!" It was still a mess, but no one spoke against the command and eventually got around to obeying it. A large semicircle formed around The Doors and within it stood the Vanguard in two ranks, some with blades drawn and some with weapons stowed. There was a great deal of uncertainty and nervous glances. No one quite knew what to do from here. Saij walked out in front of them, eyes on the Doors. He was one of the ones who had drawn his blade in the confusion but now, after a moment of consideration, he sheathed it and the rest of the Vanguard followed suit. Op''skith could tell he was as uncertain as everyone else, but he saw that at this moment, they all needed a leader who was confident and so that was what he would be. Just as Op''skith could pick up any weapon and know how to fight with it, Saij could walk into any scenario and know how he ought to act. And right now, it seemed he needed to act like he somehow had authority over those many years his senior. He drew himself up and stepped out from in front of the Vanguard before continuing his orders. "First rank, advance and open the Doors! Second rank, stand vigilant!" Op''skith was all too pleased to obey that order and lined himself up shoulder to shoulder with the others gripping the huge white handles of the Doors. They started to pull tentatively at first, then with more force, then digging in heels to pit their weight against the task. It felt like he was pulling on a wall. Op''skith strained, the muscles in his arms and legs bunching as he pitted his full force against his implacable opponent. He couldn''t stop now. Not when he was so close. But when Saij shouted to stop he could only slump and pant. Around him, trolls and obsidimen did the same. They had been straining as hard, to as much effect, it seemed. Saij shouted again "That''s it, catch your breath, then set your feet and get ready. All together on three, for the sky! One! Two! Three!" With a shout, Op''skith heaved for all he was worth for a moment, then another, then he felt something and- Suddenly instead of straining against the Door it was slamming into him and driving him backwards with unstoppable force as thunder filled his ears. The impact left him disoriented and it was all he could do to scramble out of the way.


    It was several long moments lying on the ground before he could begin to think again. He tried to open his eyes, but began blinking rapidly as he found them clogged by dust. He tried to rise but fell back as his head spun and... was it too quiet? He tried to listen for any sound of movement- and a spike of pain from his ears told him that the thunderous noise before had been louder than he thought. He couldn''t hear a thing right now. After a short time, hands pulled him to his feet and water rinsed the dust from his eyes. Some time after that, his head stopped spinning and he was able to blearily make out just what had happened. The Doors were thrown wide and between them, in the void of the Doorway was... stone. Boulders, slabs and gravel were piled as high as the Doorway and spilled into the kaer. Op''skith''s eyes searched the darkness, looking for any sign of light or air among the shadows, but there was nothing. Stone upon stone upon stone confronted him. He could only stare.


    --------


    Hours later, Op''skith heaved. He and a troll rolled the rock another few paces before stopping to catch their breath again. Those others were still arguing about what to do, as if this changed anything. Nothing had changed. The decision had already been made to leave. This only meant that it would take longer. But of course, the opportunity was taken to reconsider every facet of the decision. What difference did it make if it took a day or a week to reach the surface? It had to be done. It HAD to be done. Op''skith heaved a final time with the troll and with a last turn the rock sank into the dirt of the field. With the thriving stone broken it wasn''t as if they would be growing anything here so the field wasn''t good for anything else anymore. With that done, he turned back to the Doorway and moved back towards the bustle of work there. A steady stream of people moved across it, gathering, lifting, dragging and moving the stone out of the way however they could. His eyes probed the darkness again by habit, searching for any sign of light beyond the void of stone. But there was no change, of course. As if anything could have changed in the last few minutes. He shuddered. He had been wrong. Something HAD changed.


    All his life he had been told that there was a world out there. He had been told there was a world where wind flew free and light reigned over darkness. He had been told that there was a world without the confines of walls and ceilings, where he could move and breathe. He had been told and he had believed. But those stories had been wrong. Beyond the Doors it was just the same as any other wall: stone without end. He shuddered again. It was like he had lived his entire life in a closet. It had been cramped. It had been stuffy. But he had known all along that escape was right there. A moment away from freedom he could hardly feel the pressure. But that escape had been a lie. There had never been any freedom waiting. It wasn''t a moment away. It was a month away. Or a year. Or it had never been there at all. People spoke of the world above but they only repeated what they had been told by those who repeated what they had been told in turn. No one had actually seen it. And even if they had, after all these centuries, with those *things* out there... They knew the world outside might have changed in their long absence, but how much? Could all that they recorded be gone? Could there be nothing left but stone? Endless stone?


    A third shudder ran through him. It rolled down from his neck along his arms and back, leaving his tail twitching and his knees weak. He was suddenly aware of the walls around him and the ceiling above him, all made of that same grim stone. He was aware of the air in his lungs, the same air that had been breathed a thousand times before. It all seemed to press in on the edges of his awareness, as unrelenting and inevitable as the force of the Door driving him backwards has been. What was he in the face of something so vast?


    He took a hold of himself. This was a waste of thought. He disdained others for wasting time on pointless considerations when there was only one path forward and yet here he was, letting himself spin in circles when there was only one thing that could be done. They would move the rocks. However long it would take, whatever might be out there, it didn''t matter right now. They had to dig. That was all there was to it. He squared his shoulders and got back to work.


    -----------


    It was... later. It was near the end of the cycle he supposed. The light crystals were dimmed now and everyone had gone off to sleep or to eat, probably. Op¡¯skith sat, leaning against a wall. His body slumped like a pile of rotting logs. Every limb ached with bone-deep exhaustion and his mind wasn¡¯t far behind. The doorway was crowded with broken stone and the dust of boulders. Some were cracked open so the fragments could be hauled away. Trails of chips and dust lead away to a mound in a fallow crop field. The work had gone on for hours, but everyone was gone now, promising an early start tomorrow. Everyone but Op¡¯skith. He lay, staring with dull eyes at the endless wall of stone. Some detached part of his mind repeated to him that these were the same walls he had lived in all his life. He had grown up here, as generations before him had and they had been well. There was no reason for what was or was not behind those Doors to change that. But that part of him was wrong.


    Before he had seen what was behind the Doors he had hope, and that hope had been a certainty. But now that hope, the hope of a better world outside, was a desperate one. It felt like the hope of a child or a fool who could not accept the truth staring them in the face. How could ancient legends of forgotten horizons challenge the solid reality of lifetimes lived within stone? Why should there be anything more than this fragile bubble of air and light in a world of endless gray stone? Their ancient ancestors had abandoned the Sun and the Sky to the Horrors to do with as they pleased, and so those things were lost. Perhaps they should have died fighting instead.


    As he lay, the room seemed to press in on him. The ceiling was bowing under the weight of endless stone, the walls were being crushed inward by that unstoppable force. The floor was nothing but a mortar, waiting implacably for him to be ground to powder against it. He needed to get out. He couldn¡¯t breathe. He needed to get out. That panicked thought drew him from his stupor, but no urgency could speed the leaden movement of his exhausted body. Step by step, he walked to The Door. He picked up a piece of stone. His muscles screamed in agony but he couldn¡¯t hear them as he lifted it, carried it to the others and set it down. He walked back and reached out to grasp another piece of stone. He prized it from the others, carried it to the mound and set it down. He continued. His arms stretched and he felt a tearing sensation in his right arm as it gave way beneath another huge chunk of stone. He stared at the dropped stone, then at his limp arm, then bent down, adjusted to a different grip and lifted it again, avoiding tension on the failing muscle this time. His back felt like brittle straw and his legs like sacks of rot held up by wires. He just kept moving. His entire attention was absorbed in the pressure crushing him from every side, stealing the breath from his lungs, threatening to drown him in an endless gray abyss. He had to get out. He heard someone speaking to him gently as he moved, then shouting orders. He had to get out. The voice moved into his path. He couldn¡¯t recognize it through bleary vision. He had to get out. He stepped around the obstacle and bent to pry out another large stone. He heaved. It stayed put. He heaved. It stayed put. He had to get out. He heaved. It budged a tiny amount. Then there was a different voice. Another¡­ someone. Jata. Jata would help. He always did. Op''skith croaked out a request, or perhaps a plea. His mind didn''t quite make sense of the words he had said. But regardless, the voice that was Jata grasped the rock from the other side and they heaved together. The rock moved. They carried it between them carefully and set it down with the others. He blinked as he stood. He could see Jata now. His face was made of a smooth, greenish stone-flesh, quite different from the rough gray stone they had been hauling. He blinked again. Jata had said something else. He sounded disappointed, or perhaps sad. Op''skith didn''t respond. He looked back towards the Doorway. They had more stone to move. They had to get out. Then Jata was swinging one arm in a slow arc with a fist. A clumsy punch. Op¡¯skith had beaten better. Just duck to the right, drive his knee into the obsidiman¡¯s shin to throw off his balance then slip behind him to ride him to the ground and catch him in a chokehold. It was all about using their weight against them with obsidimen. Op''skith realized that he hadn¡¯t actually started the maneuver yet. Jata¡¯s fist was getting closer. He informed his body that it was time to start moving. His body decided to take this as a suggestion and soundly rejected it on several counts. And then there was darkness.

 Chapter 2 - Recovery

    Chapter 2 - Recovery


    Awareness was slow to return.  Even once exhaustion had retreated, unconsciousness wouldn''t give him up so easily.  He floated on a sea of darkness.  But ripples within that sea pressed in on him.  They requested his attention gently at first, then more insistently.  Soon the ripples became waves.  He was bobbed and shaken on that tide until a wave washed over his face and, with a gasp, he jolted awake.


    Op''skith was... in pain.  The pain wrapped around his scales, it clung and tugged at his flesh and it burrowed down in to his bones.  He listened to the pain, feeling for its cause, wondering at relief, but there were too many sources and no easy escape.  It was rooted deep in muscles, tendons and joints.  It was the aftermath of hard use, which he generally found to be a pleasantly satisfying sensation, but here it had gone past all reason.  What he felt now was damage.  And it hurt.


    But under that was a less intense, but more demanding sensation:  Hunger.  He could tell that he was no longer tired, but instead he was drained, as if movement would be too much trouble to bother with.  Even his thoughts felt sluggish, and that more than anything made him nervous.  It took great effort for him to realize the thought, but he knew that this kind of hunger was dangerous.  It would let him drift into a stupor and then eat him from the inside out.  With effort, he concentrated on the hunger.  He felt at the emptiness in his stomach, mentally sifting through the sensations from his body until it stirred.  The hunger sharpened, becoming painful and needy.  Now, rather than dulling his thoughts it gave him clarity and a burning need to get food without delay.


    His eyes opened and he blinked through the darkness, trying to understand where he was.  He was lying on a bed, not his, partially covered by a blanket.  His tail was tucked awkwardly underneath his legs and the frills on his head were pressed against the headboard.  Those were going to be stiff later, but he supposed that was a relatively minor concern.  He could just barely make out the room he was in through the dim red illumination of a light crystal set low.  It was one of the unused quarters, abandoned generations ago as the population of the kaer shrank.  Odd, why wasn''t he in his own rooms?  They weren''t that far from the Doors.  The room was mostly empty.  The contents had long since been reused or stored away, except for the furniture not worth the trouble.  The furniture included a bench, a few shelves, the bed of course and, to his right, a side table with a tray of food on it.  The bowls of roasted squash and boiled grains were the same as they always ate, but now they made his mouth water.


    He immediately reached towards the tray, but his arm spasmed and seized with pain.  That was more than exhaustion and overuse.  That was a serious injury.  He breathed rapid short breaths, trying to remain perfectly still as the pain subsided.  Something tugged at his memory, and he thought back to the previous cycle.  It was hazy, but the half-remembered images told him that his right arm had given way while he was moving an unreasonably heavy piece of stone.  He recalled the tearing sensation with horror.  Something in that arm had torn, badly, and he has just kept going.  Why had he done that to himself?  How had he done that to himself?  The pain alone should have flattened him.  He felt detached from the person who had acted that way.  Those actions felt so unreal, but he could remember himself doing them.  It was frightening, like watching his body being puppeteered by some other force, but it was also morbidly intriguing.  His body had been pushed harder and damaged worse in his years of training, but never with that kind of unnaturally deliberate control.  Thought generally fled in the face of exhaustion and pain like he had experienced then.


    But those were thoughts for... some other time.  For now, he needed a way to get at that food without his right arm.  Hunger still strained at him, demanding attention.  With great effort and deliberate attention, he pushed himself back up against the the headboard of the bed.  His body protested every inch of movement painfully, but he managed it eventually.  From there, he was able to awkwardly reach over with his left hand to pick up the bowls of food.  With one hand and at this angle he couldn''t properly use any of the utensils provided, which left him to shovel the food into his mouth with his hands.  It was messy, but he didn''t care at the moment.  Some other time, he might have been concerned about eating too quickly, as hungry as he was, but the pain and stiffness that followed every movement limited him to a reasonable rate.  At last, his hunger subsided and he was able to turn his attention elsewhere.


    He wasn''t sure where he was in the kaer or why.  The food had been cold, so he had been left alone in here for some time and didn''t expect anyone to come for him soon.  He wanted to get moving again, but he was in no condition for that right now.  But he would be.


    He settled his mind down, past his body.  He let sight, sound and even touch drift away.  He let the reins of control slip away to become a part of the greater whole.  He sank deep.  He sank into fiber and sinew, into the great structures and complexes that made up his body.  His awareness slipped around and through it, dancing along the networks that filled him to find what he sought.  He decided to start with his back.  With strain this extensive, it was always best to start there.  He traversed a familiar pathway, dancing down his spine to a particular sinew and followed it to the small muscle there.  He probed along it, feeling the strain, the tension and the death.  In his use of it, parts of that muscle had died.  They would need to be removed to make way for a regrowth.  Op''skith wanted to feel sadness over the loss, the death he had caused here.  But... the muscle told him otherwise.  What it wanted was to rebuild stronger.  There was no regret, no sense of failure over its losses, no fear that worse might happen in the future, there was only the purpose.  Grow again better.  There wasn''t even any concept of what it was building for or how strong it should be.  ''Should'' was a foreign idea here.  Perhaps it was just shallow, but it was also refreshing in its purity and simplicity.  Grow back stronger.  It was purpose, and that was enough.  But to follow that purpose, it would need help.  Op''skith gently felt along the sinew and released the tension there, letting the muscle relax and continue its slow process of regrowth.  But he wasn''t satisfied with ''slow''.  This would require further intervention.


    He slid his awareness back through his body, making his way to the center.  As he approached, he felt trepidation.  When he experienced his body in this way it didn''t feel like ''his'' body, really.  For all the control he could exert, he was small here.  He was subject to a greater power, the force that drove his body to move, the force that made it beat.  Even as he approached, he could feel the raw vitality hit him like thunder, threatening to wash him away, but he persevered.  He looked upon the great engine at the center of his body.  It swelled, filling to bursting with the essence of life itself, and then hammered home with a force that would shake every corner of this world that was his body.  It seemed majestic, like some great emperor at the hub of his domain.  It spoke its command: "LIVE." with every blow, and the world shook, and could not help but obey its true lord.  Op''skith''s awareness approached reverently, as a supplicant seeking a boon.  He was pulled in and driven outward again forcefully by that great command.  "LIVE."  And so he would.


    He rode the pulse of blood outward, following branches and pathways as he needed, until he came near where he intended.  Then he shifted the flow.  It deviated from its course and followed a new pathway as he commanded.  It flowed over the muscle he had been working on before and then onward, back to its natural channel.  Very distantly, he could feel from another Op''skith, the one lying on a bed, that an unusual lump had formed on his back as blood and muscle shifted, but that was irrelevant.  He seized the flow and used it to sweep away the dead portions of the muscle.  Pain boiled up as it was scoured away, released from its confinement.  He massaged life back into the muscle, pouring in the foundations for future growth as the muscle demanded.  It didn''t thank him, such things were beyond the purpose, but it moved faster now that it had the tools it needed.  With that, at last, there was a little relief.  With his work done here, he released the flow he had diverted and guided it back to its natural channel.  That was one done... but many, many more to go.  Op''skith moved on to another.


    He worked his way first along his back and torso, relieving the strain from his center before working outwards down his limbs one by one.  Time utterly vanished as he worked.  At some point during the process there was some sensation of light and sound.  A door opened, light flared, a voice spoke.  Maybe it spoke to him.  All those sensations seemed irrelevant as he worked.  Like the feeling of wearing a shirt, the sensation was present, but so far from his awareness as to be unnoticeable.  The world of light and sound was so removed from the world of vitality and sinew that he now explored.  It was familiar, for he had traversed these pathways many times, but always new.  This place was change and chaos.  Ever and always the old was swept away and the new grew in its place.  But it was also order.  Ever and always the parts served their purpose within the whole.  The great process carried onward, driven forward by the thundering beats of its emperor at the center of all.  May he reign forever.


    Op''skith carried on, channeling the flows to repair what he could.  He was relieved to find that the damage to his right arm was not nearly as severe as he had feared.  The muscle was still whole and, with enough time, it would return to its former strength.  By the time he finally withdrew his attention from the channels and returned to his eyes and ears, some time had passed.  Hours?  Cycles?  It was uncertain.  But evidently someone had come in, for there was a fresh meal in place of the one he had consumed so awkwardly before.  This was good, as his work had left him extremely hungry.  But now, with much of the tension and pain relieved, he could eat like a person again.  With a gesture, he brought the light quartz up to full strength to illuminate the room properly and sat up on the bed.  With a piece of cloth, he tied a simple sling for his right arm.  Even with all he had done, his body would need time to recover fully and that arm longer than the rest.  As he tied the sling, he found to his surprise that his hands were bandaged.  Evidently he had cut his hands on those rocks.  The truly unusual thing was that the bandages were crusted with blood.  It had been... years since he had bled freely or needed bandages at all.  With his abilities, it was a simple matter for him to divert wasted flows away from open cuts.  He hardly needed to think about it anymore, but evidently, that had been beyond him when these were applied.This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.


    The meal was still awkward, with only his left hand, but it felt good to eat properly with utensils now.  As he ate, it occurred to him that they had probably expected him to call for help when he woke, rather than struggle on his own.  But Op''skith had never been much good at asking for help with anything he thought he could do himself, even if he needed it.  With a full stomach again, he rose and stretched.  His body still ached, but it was dull now.  Even pleasant.  A reminder of hard work rather than a protest against abuse.  He made his way to the door... and found that it had been barred.  From the outside.  Considering why he had ended up here, he couldn''t blame them for that he supposed.  It also explained why he hadn''t been left in his own room.  Well, he could try to knock it open.  Or he could shout for someone to let him out.  ...But he could also wait a little longer.  There was one more thing he had to do regardless.  His body and mind were refreshed after food and rest, but there was another pool of strength that he had drawn on deeply in his recovery.  Besides, the ritual would help to center his thoughts before he would need to decide what to do next.


    Op''skith moved to the center of the small room.  It was good there wasn''t much left here, he needed the space.  He closed his eyes and breathed deeply.  He reached for that first step- and stumbled.  He wanted to blame his sore muscles or his arm still in a sling, but that wasn''t right.  This act was always natural.  Always.  He resumed his stance and waited.  He did not focus on anything in particular.  He didn''t try to listen or to see, to think or to plan.  He just waited.  Until it came.  The beat was faint, but steady.


    Beat.  Beat.  Beat.


    In it, there was purpose.  He traced the rhythm, following it down his legs and up his arms, through his tail and into his neck.  It was the beat of his heart.  But he was no longer within the domain of that emperor, subject to its power.  Now he was the domain itself.  It did not command, it offered.  He listened, not because it was greater than he, but because he wished to hear.  He listened, and he moved.


    Beat.  Beat.  Beat.


    He let the beat guide him into motion as he took the first form, and then the second.  The motion between the forms was patient and deliberate, straining his balance with their slowness.  These forms were different than those he performed when he could use both arms, but the new movements always came to him as automatically as they ever had.  They had never been his creation.  They had come from him, but they were far older than he was.  He could feel it.  As he worked his way through the forms, the beats of his heart gradually increased in tempo and his movements sped up with them.  The movements flowed from one step to the next like an elegant dance.  He felt himself joined as part of a great whole, one thread in a vast tapestry.  And he moved.


    One-two-three.  Beat-beat-beat.


    The dance swirled and swayed with refined precision, but his mind was far away.  The movements came so naturally, without thought.  It felt as ancient as time, though he had never seen any other perform it.  The tempo of his heart increased, and the tempo of the dance with it.  The graceful dance became less constrained, more wild and energetic.  The tapestry stretched back into eternity and wove itself forward into the future.  And he danced.


    One-two-one-two-three-four-one.  Beat-beat-beat-beat-beat-beat-beat.


    The dance was wild and exuberant, much like the dances the people of the kaer actually performed in their celebrations.  It felt incomplete though.  He was always reacting to the movements of a partner that wasn¡¯t there and it made the dance feel almost hollow.  He had tried to perform it with partners before but it was impossible.  The invisible form he danced around fit neither a troll, nor a t¡¯skrang nor the form of any namegiver he could imagine.  It made didn''t make sense but it was true and certain as stone.  The rhythm increased again, blood pounding in his ears, and the dance turned into a battle.  He tried to glimpse the pattern of the tapestry as he wove within it, but the image danced away, always beyond his sight.  So he fought.


    Beat-beat-beat.


    He ducked and dodged imagined blows, hands flashing out to return them.  Always he danced around his invisible partner, covering their blind spots as they covered his.  The frantic movement reached a fever pitch and then halted suddenly in a pose of rest.  He could not see the pattern of the tapestry but he could hear it.  A heartbeat, no, two heartbeats in perfect unison and the sound of rushing air.


    And then it was over and he sagged at the renewed aches in his muscles.  But he also felt reinvigorated, like a well of strength deep within was refilling after having run dry.  The visions never made much sense.  He¡¯d asked Jata and Saij, the other two adepts in the kaer, and they had told him of similar rituals and sensations but they always seemed to be able to make more sense of them.  They¡¯d felt echoes of great works of craftsmanship or of a hundred legends told a thousand ways.  Their visions seemed to point the way while his only seemed to tell him he was missing something.  He sighed.  They were supposed to have instruction in these things.  As adepts, they were supposed to be initiated and guided in the ways of their discipline by masters who understood what they were doing.  But time and isolation had done their harsh work on the kaer.  Masters had found only students who could not grow to match their abilities within the confines of the kaer, or passed on without finding students at all, and after six centuries they had nothing but wild talents grasping at straws.  There might be a dozen more adepts among their people, but they simply had no way to find them or initiate them.


    A knock came at the door and the voice of Rull, a troll from the vanguard and one of his closer friends, came through.


    ¡°So, I guess you¡¯re up in there?"


    ¡°Yes, was I making that much noise?¡±


    "No, not the sound, it was the dance.  My heart just started... well, I assumed you must be up and moving around."  One of the odd features of Op''skith''s ritual was the way it sometimes affected others, their own heartbeats matching his.  He usually performed it well away from others for that reason.


    "Ah, my apologies for that."


    "Oh, I don''t mind, it''s not a bad feeling only... odd.  Memorable.  Anyway, are you alright?  You were out for more than a cycle.  I think someone was going to start trying to feed you in your sleep if you hadn''t started twitching soon."  Rull''s words were as friendly as ever, but his tone was somewhat guarded.  The fact that he carried on the conversation through the door and made no move to open it was not lost on Op''skith.


    "I''m as well as I can be, Rull.  Could you let me out of here?"  Rull didn''t reply right away.  Op''skith''s tone had been casual, but he found himself suddenly trying to suppress the tension he felt.  Could he get out of here?  Was he trapped?  He had been avoiding the thought as long as he could in here, focusing on every other thing that he could, but now the question had been asked and he began to fear the answer.  The walls were so close.


    "Are you going to try to beat yourself to death again?"  The question was spoken with a bit of dry humor, but under that was serious concern.  Rull had seen Op''skith push himself before, but this had been different and he was worried.  Op''skith found himself wondering how long it would take him to break down the door.  He was sure that he could, which was oddly comforting, but he tried to suppress the thought regardless.


    "No?"  He tried to reply with the same dry humor, but after a moment of silence from Rull he continued with a more sincere tone.  "No, Rull.  It''s not going to happen again."  He tried to mean it.  Sometimes speaking the words out loud helped to make them true.  He could hear Rull shift a little in response, but he still seemed to be hesitating.  "Please, I can''t stay in here."  He tried to keep himself in control, but he could feel the edge of desperation creeping into his voice.  This had all been so much easier before he asked, before there was doubt that he could leave.  The ceiling was pressing downward on him.


    Finally, he heard the bar shift as Rull unblocked and then opened the door.  Op''skith gave a sigh of relief as he stepped into the hallway.  Rull looked him up and down, taking in the unchanged clothing and the makeshift sling.  "You''re going to leave the lifting to us for a few cycles, aren''t you?"  Looking down at his right arm, Op''skith had to nod.  They left the room behind and made their way through the corridors towards the rear of the kaer, where Op''skith''s own room was.  They made some awkward small talk, dancing around the issue.  The digging had continued, but there was no sign of progress besides larger piles of stone as of yet.  Plenty of people had been concerned about Op''skith, there were no strangers and few secrets in the close quarters, but most took it as another in the long line of injuries Op''skith had suffered one way or another.  Only a few could recognize just how unusual this episode had been.  Op''tan was among them, but he rarely involved himself in Op''skith''s problems anymore.  So that left him with Rull, who finally abandoned the other topics and took the issue by the horns.


    "Op''skith, what happened to you?  I need to understand this.  You take risks, you push yourself, but what would make you do that to yourself?"


    Op''skith still wasn''t certain himself, but he had been trying to work out an answer for some time.  The thoughts from that time were jumbled and vague, but the emotions were still powerful.  They threatened to bubble up at any moment.  "I needed to get out Rull.  I need to get out and... And what if there isn''t an ''out''?  What if it''s just this?  I don''t know if I can..."  He didn''t finish the thought.  It wasn''t a pleasant one, and sometimes speaking the words out loud helped to make them true.


    Rull seemed to accept this.  After a moment he clapped Op''skith on the shoulder and looked down on him with earnest eyes.  "The Chained Dreamer guide you, my friend.  Hope in the darkness."  It was an invocation of Lochost in his aspect as the slave yearning for freedom.  They rarely had any call to invoke the Passion of change in the static world of the kaer.  There was so little that could be changed if they wanted to survive as they had down here.  But even now, in a time that should be a new beginning, Op''skith could not feel the Passion.  Still, he took the blessing in the spirit it was given as they went their separate ways.


    --------


    Back in his room, he found himself restless.  He had slept too much already to be tired, but he was too weak to do anything physical.  He wanted to talk, but then he''d have to answer too many questions.  It was painful enough with Rull.  It would only be worse with others.  And besides, they would all be by the Doorway.  The Doorway into nothing.  He tried to read, but he found the lines of The Saga of The Broken Mountain slipping from his mind as quickly as he read them, sliding off the jumble of confused thoughts swirling in his head.  He tried to clear his mind, letting those thoughts drift themselves into stillness, but all too soon he felt his mind drifting its way towards that dark pit he had been running from.  How much weight was pressing down on the ceiling?  Was it his imagination or did the stone start to bow inward?  He tried to escape the feeling, but there was nowhere to go.  He opened the door to the hallway.  That was... better.  He tried to attend to his equipment, but he had already polished it to perfection days ago in preparation for the opening.  He even tried to go back to stitchwork.  He hadn''t touched it in months, leaving the symbol of a wolf rampant half-finished on the cloak, but progress was hopeless with his right arm as it was.


    He sat.  The uselessness dug away at him.  Dragging him towards that pit.  He wanted to scream.  He reasserted control over himself.  He had promised Rull he wouldn''t lose himself again.  He could feel those words growing hollow.  They were brittle, like a dry twig bearing a heavy load.  The faint sound of metal on stone echoed down the halls and through his open door, drawing him from his thoughts.  He stood up and left the room.  Dread slowed his steps.  Terror kept him going forward.  He moved towards the noise.

 Chapter 3 - Community

    Op''skith walked down the hallways towards the sounds of metal on stone.  He knew what he would see.  That black archway with its endless void of stone awaited him.  The center of all his dreams of escape was now trying to drown him in blackness.  But there was nowhere to hide from it in this stone trap he lived in.  When there was only one possible way forward, it must be taken.  That did nothing to quiet the roiling dread he felt as he drew closer.  It dragged at his heels as he walked.


    But then there were others.  T''kena passed him carrying something.  She paid him no mind, focused on her own business, and he found that oddly reassuring.  As he rounded the final corner he saw the yard before the Doors bustling with movement.  Where the work previously had been a ragtag business, driven by stubbornness more than anything, it seemed that affairs had been put in order.  The Doorway was still filled with the void of stone, but now that void bustled with work as steel cracked stone and a steady line of obsidimen and trolls moved through, hauling chunks of rock, or rolling carts of gravel.  Around them, the much smaller t''skrang hustled back and forth, directing the loads of stone to appropriate places, keeping paths clear of debris and running supplies back and forth so the pace of the work could be maintained.  Other shifts of workers rested and drank nearby at some tables apparently dragged out here for the purpose.  Op''skith had never seen so many all working together on one project.  This was nearly the entire kaer.  Even the largest harvest didn''t have use for more than a quarter of this number working at once.  It was astounding.


    And yet... through that Doorway the wall of stone had only moved a few feet.  The light and people in it only seemed to highlight how unyielding it was.  What good did it do to carve away one layer only to reveal another?  Was there anything else out there?  His reverie broke and he began moving again.  Movement, light, life.  These were the opposites of the stone.  Op''skith picked his way around the edge of the work, being careful not to get in the way.  He noticed Jata with a table to himself fussing over a collection of odd tools and went to join him.  The large green-black obsidiman was bent over an assortment of strange implements of metal and wood.  Some were clearly broken while others... Op''skith couldn''t even tell.  Op''skith stepped close by and spoke, the question clear in his voice: "New tools?"


    Jata rumbled happily.  "Yes.  Worked through the cycle on them.  Finally, they let me at the old implements.  And the furniture.  Don''t need to keep it in storage if we''re leaving."  Materials had been a constant challenge for the craftsman adept all his years.  Metal was absolutely irreplaceable and the crop fields hadn''t been used to grow wood in generations, which left Jata with only what worn out possessions he was permitted to recycle into new projects.  "Not sure how to use these."  He said, gesturing to a collection of oddly curved metal spikes.  "But they''re good for mining somehow."  Like Op''skith, Jata was an adept.  Where Op''skith could pick up any weapon, or any item even, and fight with it as if he had trained all his life, Jata seemed to be able to make the right tools for any purpose.  Even when he didn''t understand that purpose.  Though the motion of his hands was always steady and precise over the tools, Op''skith could tell from how he touched them and from the way he spoke that the stolid obsidiman was practically bursting with excitement.  Well, for Jata at least.  From Jata, four sentences in a row, without much prompting, even, was the equivalent of climbing on a table and bellowing Rotall poetry from anyone else.


    But then Jata broke from his inspection of the tools and looked up to stare at Op''skith with those deep-carven eyes of his.  He took a moment, his brow furrowing slightly, before he spoke.  "How is your head, Op''skith?"  There was a little embarrassment in his voice.


    Op''skith met his eyes and gave a weak smile.  "It feels better than the rest of me does, my friend."  Jata nodded and looked back to his table.  He was clearly self conscious about knocking Op''skith out, but it had been necessary.  Op''skith wouldn''t hold a grudge over doing what had to be done.


    Op''skith looked over the tools with interest himself.  There were hooks, chains, shovels, hammers, and some kind of tool like a hammer, but with a long crescent top that ended in a point.  Jata said it was called a ''pickaxe''.  That one Jata had known about from some of the old books and several other pickaxes he had made were in use in the Doorway.  The one here had splintered at the handle and he was trying to determine how the joint should be affixed to reduce the stress to the wood, as well as if he could make them with less metal without weakening them.  Even with all the old tools they didn''t expect to need being given to Jata, metal was still a precious resource.  Op''skith was impressed at the sheer volume of work that Jata had managed, but it seemed it had cost him.  His eyes still sparkled, but his eyelids were heavy.  He was clearly exhausted.  Op''skith doubted he had rested much, if at all, in the last cycle.  When he said that he might rest and return to the work later Op''skith didn''t argue.


    So Op''skith was again left on the edge of the work.  He could take some comfort in seeing the progress being made, but watching others busy without any purpose of his own left him feeling increasingly anxious.  He considered leaving them to it and going elsewhere, but he could sense the shadow of his fear at the edge of awareness.  He could feel that it would return in full force if he gave it the chance.  Even now it was building.  His own uselessness fed the fear that the task was impossible, that no matter how much stone they broke or moved, there would always be more.  The floor was an implacable grindstone, he would be crushed to powder against it.  He forced the fear down and made his way to one of the tables where a crew of trolls slouched tired bodies and drained jugs of water.  Soora seemed to have been acting as the foreman for the group, so he made his way to where she sat, exchanging a few greetings with the others as he passed them.


    Soora was an imposing figure, as trolls generally are.  She stood near seven and a half feet, with curling horns adding another inch or so.  At forty years of age, she was one of the older trolls, though not quite an Elder.  Her face was stern, in a matronly way, framed by neat tusks and long black hair with only a few streaks of grey tied back into a bun.  She wore loose work clothing made from the heavy canvas-like cloth the trolls generally preferred and lounged back against the table, watching over the younger trolls.  As Op''skith approached her, she nodded respectfully and greeted him.  "Adept."  Op''skith winced internally at the title.  Some in the kaer, especially among the trolls, seemed to grant him respect on the basis of his abilities.  He didn''t mind it most of the time, it could be convenient, but it unnerved him for someone twice his age to act like being able to fight or do a few tricks with his body made him any wiser.  Regardless, he gave her a slight bow and made his request.


    "Soora, I hope you are well.  Is there anything I can help your group with?"


    She appraised him with the eye of an experienced mother, though when she replied her tone was modulated with that same peculiar respect.  "Adept, I think that rest might be-"


    "Please"  He cut her off.  "I just want to be useful.  It doesn''t need to be anything strenuous."


    She seemed to hear something more than what he had said in his voice because she examined him again, with less respect and more doubt.  It reminded Op''skith of the way Jata had examined the damaged tools, looking for what had caused their failure and how to repair them.  She seemed to come to a decision and jerked her head towards the obsidiman in her group, Risi, as she spoke. "Have him show you what he''s been doing then.  Maybe you''ll learn something for when you''ve recovered."


    Op''skith accepted the offer and made his way to the obsidiman, who was sitting quietly to one side, eyes closed.  He was shorter than most of the trolls at a ''mere'' seven feet, and in fact, from a distance, he looked smaller than they did in every way.  But that did not account for the impossible density of obsidiman.  They were flesh and blood like anyone else, though their blood had been an odd blue-green color the few times Op''skith had seen it.  However, their bodies were impossibly strong and dense.  Op''skith knew that part of Jata''s deliberate care came from his skill as a craftsman, but part of it also came from the fact that tools and furniture made for t''skrang, or even trolls, could easily snap if he wasn''t careful.


    Op''skith didn''t know Risi well.  He knew few of the obsidimen very well, despite the small community of the kaer.  They simply didn''t fit well among the others.  With no family ties beyond their brotherhood, or any need to form them, they remained apart from others.  In addition, their seeming agelessness set them out from the hierarchy of the kaer.  In fact, Risi was probably older than Soora.  Perhaps by a century or more.  But the obsidimen rarely tried to use age as authority the way the other races did.  At least, not that Op''skith had seen.  How they managed their own affairs seemed to be a closely kept secret.  They allowed the younger species to play out their politics and then did their part quietly.  As a result, they had little say in the normal running of the kaer.  As a result, when they decided to speak, everyone listened.


    Risi cracked his eyes open at Op''skith''s approach, like fractures in stone.  He didn''t show any other reaction.  Op''skith briefly fidgeted under the steady gaze before giving a slight bow and speaking.  "Risi" the name felt awkward in his mouth without an honorific of some kind "Soora suggested you could teach me some of what you''ve been doing."  Risi considered for a moment, then nodded and closed his eyes again.  Op''skith found a place of his own to sit and waited as well.  Obsidimen always made him feel awkward.  Well, except Jata.


    So they waited.  Eventually the groups started rotating and one of the t''skrang running around let Soora know where they would be working next.  Op''skith saw the young t''skrang returning to the center of the organized chaos, where a group around a table was arranging collections of markers representing people, work, assignments and time.  No paper, of course, it was too precious to be used for something so mundane.  To Op''skith''s surprise, he saw Op''tan in the thick of it.  He was in vigorous discussion with several others while passing on orders to the messengers that approached at a rapid pace.  He had always been respected, for his age, for his skill as an artisan and for his wisdom, but he rarely took the lead directly.  He preferred to change minds quietly and let results speak for themselves rather than ever raise his voice in an argument.  He looked fierce in the center of all those people but also... haggard.  He looked as if he hadn''t slept and his normally immaculate appearance was rumpled.  He never let himself slip like that.  Then Op''skith noticed as his chaida glanced towards him quickly before immediately pulling his eyes back to the table.  A stolen glance.  Op''skith was suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of emotion.  They rarely saw eye to eye these days but...  He blinked the moisture from his eyes and rose.  Soora''s group was getting back to their work and he fell into line behind Risi.


    Their group had the job of moving in behind the group digging in the doorway and pulling the broken fragments of stone out, then organizing them into the several piles now forming in the nearby fields.  It was the same thing they had been doing before, but now there was some kind of complex system governing it all.  One team moved in collecting large rocks, as they left another moved in shoveling dust and gravel, then as they left to haul the debris to a determined location they handed off their limited number of shovels to another group going in.  The result was a constant stream of people moving through the Doorway while the sounds of digging echoed from the small tunnel as it grew.  Groups rotated out, taking time for rest and water, and rotated back in.  All of it seemed to be being managed from the one table in the center, where messengers regularly came and went.  They must also be organizing the rest of the kaer from there.  With every spare hand occupied here, the kitchens, the reservoirs and the gardens would need to be well organized to ensure that none of the upkeep of the kaer fell behind.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    The kaer had never been this busy in all Op''skith''s years.  In the confined space with limited resources only a fraction of the population ever had truly useful work to do and the rest were left to fill the hours however they thought best.  The unified purpose that filled them was... refreshing.  Like a pool of water, grown stagnant and stale, rushing to fill a new channel at last.  But his part in it was small.  Risi''s task was to break the larger rocks as they were rolled in so that the fragments could be packed more efficiently.  It seemed like a simple matter, but Risi seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time examining each stone before taking his hammer to it.  Op''skith just stood there, feeling useless, before he broke his silence.


    "Risi, pardon me, but what are you doing?  Why not just break them and move on?"


    Risi started from where he had been running his hands gently over the surface of a stone and turned to Op''skith as if he had forgotten about him before responding.  "Don''t need to rush.  They can only carry so quickly.  So, I check where it will break.  I find the seams and open them, so they break cleanly.  No wasted force.  No fragments in my eyes.  Here, feel."


    Op''skith knelt down at his direction and awkwardly ran his left hand over the stone.  It was rough and irregular, but he had no concept of what he was expected to find.  Risi seemed to take his confusion in stride and gestured for Op''skith to back up as he lined up a swing with his sledgehammer.  He swung it gently, Op''skith knew he could have struck with far more force, and the stone sheared into two chunks along a flat surface.  He knelt again and ran his hands over each fragment, and had Op''skith do the same, before rotating one and then giving each a tap that split them into smaller fragments.  Those were added to the growing pile and they moved on to the next stone.  "This one, try to tell where it will split before I hit it."  Risi said.  Op''skith tried, but all he could do was guess.  Risi didn''t give much reaction.  He only went on with the steady pace of his work, asking Op''skith to make his best guess at where and how the stone would split.  It took time, but eventually Op''skith''s guesses seemed to become somewhat reliable.  It was a subtle thing, but as he watched it happen many times Op''skith began to sense a pattern between the irregularities of the stone and the fractures that formed.


    The obsidiman didn''t seem inclined to talk much, preferring to let the rhythm of the work speak for him, but that suited Op''skith well enough.  It was pleasant to focus his attention on the pure sensations of the stone and the satisfaction of the progress that was made.  He became so lost in the work that he hardly noticed by the time two hours had passed.  Soora''s group again took their chance to rest and he walked back with the others, finding the spirit to start joking with a few of the trolls he knew again.  But his banter was interrupted as S''tess, an one of the Elderly T''skrang matrons hobbled up to him on her walking stick and asked in her slightly rasping voice "Skith?  Op''skith? Do you know where I could find T''kena?  She ought to be getting a lesson now but I can''t find the girl anywhere."


    Op''skith winced internally at the diminutive nickname, but he wasn''t about to bring it up with old S''tess.  His naming ten years ago had been recent as far as she was concerned.  He glanced around, though picking out small T''kena in the chaos would have been quite impossible.  "T''kena?  I think I saw her running messages earlier, maybe if you asked at the central-"


    "Oh, I couldn''t bother them over this.  Look how busy they are.  Ah, could you walk with me a moment?  It''s much too loud here to talk."


    Op''skith couldn''t dispute that, he could barely make out S''tess'' quiet words over the cacophony here.  He moved to walk with her as she turned and she maneuvered to his left side where she steadied her steps with a hand on his good arm.  She herded him out of the flow of travel towards one of the side passages that was practically unused as it didn''t connect the chamber to the kitchens, supply rooms or anywhere else of use.  The matron continued to question him as she walked, slow but quite unwavering.  "A messenger you say and who would she be taking messages to now?"


    "Er, the kitchens I suppose?  I only saw her a moment in the Eastwise corridor but that was hours-"


    "The kitchens?  What would be going on in the kitchens that calls for her to miss a lesson?  We were on the Tursin Clan and the Three-fork War today.  Vital history!  You remember Surkis'' Folly and the scuttling of the Whiteprow?  How is a young t''skrang supposed to appreciate the significance of kyaapas and kiatsu without proper examples!  You remember don''t you Op''skith?"


    S''tess slipped back and forth, mixing Sut''sung, the traditional language of the T''skrang, with Throalic, the common language spoken by all in the kaer, as she tended to.  Op''skith could remember the story in question.  In one of the conflicts between river clans one captain had been goaded into pursuing a rival into rocky waters, where the mighty Whiteprow was run aground and scuttled while the smaller ships they chased escaped.  It was a tale told to teach T''skrang about the limits of their bravery and the importance of balancing their courage with preparation and duty.  Something about that tugged at him, but he never had the chance to finish the thought.


    T''valla strode up to the pair and gave a slight bow to S''tess before falling into step beside her.  "S''tess, I have heard you were looking for T''kena?"  T''valla was another of the t''skrang matrons, though nearly a decade the junior of S''tess.  She seemed unaffected by her age in comparison.  Dulling scales and slumping frills only seemed to lend gravitas to her proud bearing as she strode confidently beside them.


    The trio continued onward down the passage.  S''tess still steadied herself on Op''skith''s arm, obliging him to keep up with the two.  He listened with half an ear as their conversation continued, glancing back towards Soora and the other trolls.


    "Yes my dear, she had a lesson today and I can''t seem to find the girl anywhere!  Let a hatchling pick a name and suddenly they''re too good to listen to their elders."


    "Apologies, but we''ve pulled all we could into helping with the effort at the doors.  I wouldn''t expect much of the old schedule to hold while that''s in progress."


    "Oh?  Well, I suppose.  Though I wish someone had told me.  Anyway, I can hardly blame the girl if you''ve got her doing what''s needed.  How is the progress on that anyway?"  Something in S''tess'' words tugged at Op''skith again, but he couldn''t lay a finger on it.


    "Passions, I haven''t a clue about the digging.  We''ve got our hands full trying to pull some semblance of order out of this.  Everything still needs to get done in the kitchens and the laundry, but with every other person being pulled to work something new so we''ve got to pull replacements who haven''t worked those stations in years and..."  Op''skith tuned out the conversation as they walked.  He wondered if the rest of the vanguard would be training or if they would be worn out from the work.  He had seen Vars and Bokk in another crew.  It made sense, they were young and strong.  But where would Saij end up?    He would probably be somewhere near the organization hub.  Wait, where were they going now?  The women had lead him into a sitting room as they talked and he found himself being seated beside S''tess as T''valla fussed with a kettle behind him.  He was considering how to go about excusing himself when S''tess spoke to him directly.


    "Tell me Op''skith, how have you been recovering from your condition?"


    "Well enough.  A few days and I''ll be fully recovered."  This was an odd change of topic.  Why had she-  T''valla spoke from behind him, forcing him to swivel around to face her and losing his train of thought.


    "Oh, and what exactly do you have to recover from?"


    Again, Op''skith responded automatically.  Respect for the matriarchs was instilled well in most t''skrang.  The list of injuries he had catalogued earlier rattled off his tongue.  "Mostly muscle strain and fatigue, cuts on the hands, some strained tendons and one big tear in my right arm.  That''s what''ll take the longest."  He was matter of fact about the list, though from T''valla''s blanch she wasn''t nearly so used to considering injuries as he was.  Well, she had asked.  But what were they-  S''tess spoke up then, forcing him to turn again.


    "Well, it''s good to hear you''re recovering.  We were rather worried when we heard how you slept so long.  Normally you bounce back from these things like a weed!  Why, I remember when you broke your arm for the first time.  You were nine years old?  You wailed like you were being eaten alive one day and then as soon as we managed to get it splinted you were dashing around like a little Florannus again!  Op''tan had his own war keeping you from doing any more damage to yourself!"  She ended with a cackling laugh as Op''skith lowered his eyes.  He knew he hadn''t made life easy for Op''tan growing up and even now felt some chagrin.


    T''valla chuckled.  "Oh yes, that was our Op''skith."


    "It was Skithes back then, years before he chose a name.  By the time he did it was much worse.  The boys are always worse than the hatchlings!"  They shared another chuckle at his expense before S''tess turned serious again.  "Oh yes, that''s all well and good.  I''m quite sure you can survive any injury, we''ve seen that already, but the injuries weren''t what I was asking about."  Wait, where *were* they going with this conversation?


    T''valla replied to S''tess, not giving Op''skith the chance to speak, sounding surprised by the turn in the conversation.  "Oh?  What could he have to worry about?  He''s tough as an oak door!"  She *sounded* surprised, but that response had been-


    "Oh, T''valla, a door never falls apart at the center.  It wears at the joint first and breaks from there."  She drifted into silence for a moment before continuing.  "All that strength is no good if there''s a problem at the crux.  That''s where you need to put your attention and care."  S''tess'' hand was on his as she gazed at him with earnest, caring eyes.  She was talking about- Wait.  Wait a moment.  Had he been-  Suddenly the pieces clicked into place in Op''skith''s head.  He had walked into an ambush.  Op''tan''s words came back to him.  His chaida had explained a few of the tricks and schemes the matriarchs used to keep things running the way they wanted and suddenly the whole conversation took on new meaning in his head.  There had been no reason for S''tess to come to him to learn about T''kena, and besides there was no way she would have been ignorant of all the changes in organization.  She played the old woman but he knew from Op''tan that she was as sharp as she had ever been.  Oh and that reminder about Surkis'' Folly, naturally.  And then they had pulled him in here and positioned themselves to keep his head spinning while they set up their opening.


    Drawing the enemy onto prepared ground, flanking, harrying, exploiting weakness.  It wasn''t how Op''tan had explained it, but Op''skith couldn''t help but think in the martial terms.  Exploiting weaknesses.  They had brought up Op''tan on purpose to put him off balance.  All this so he would be feeling vulnerable when they got to what they actually wanted.  All Op''skith''s uncertainty and embarrassment melted away into anger.  Of course.  They couldn''t treat him like a person and just ask their questions.  They needed him disarmed and unprepared to they could pull the answers they wanted from him.  Op''skith''s hot anger ran cold.  He knew how to deal with this from Op''tan.  He just needed to remain calm, answer the questions and demonstrate control and they would be satisfied.


    He leaned back in his chair, his hand slipping from S''tess'' as he settled himself.  "Oh, and what is this crux of mine that you are so concerned about?"


    S''tess continued, her voice filled with compassion.  "The weight of the ceiling, the pressure of the walls... The sky-sickness holds you."  There was such calm certainty in her words.  Such empathy.  Such pity.


    Op''skith snapped back, iron in his voice.  "It is not the sky-sickness."  No, was supposed to be calm and collected now, to put them at ease-


    T''valla now spoke from behind him, the same *feeling* in her voice.  "There is no shame in-"


    He couldn''t take this.  Op''skith cut her off with a sharply raised hand, but didn''t turn to face her as he spoke.  "It is not the sky sickness.  I''m not afraid of walls."  His words were cold, but not scornful.  He knew the sky-sickness was not cowardice.  But it was a false fear, a fear of crushing or suffocation that wasn''t coming, and it was not his.  "I could take life down here for all my years if I had to.  What I fear...  What I fear is that there is nothing.  I fear that there is no world above, no sky or wind left.  I fear that it was destroyed, never to return, after we abandoned it.  I fear they took it from us forever."  He realized he had started speaking too loudly.  He rose to his feet, towering over the pair.  He leveled his gaze at S''tess and then T''valla in turn before continuing in a more controlled tone.  "If you can tell me that my fear is without reason, if you can tell me for certain that there''s something to be found out there then I''ll listen to what help you think I need, but until then..."  His final words came out as a whisper.  "I ask you why you aren''t just as afraid as I am."


    After a moment, S''tess started speaking hesitantly.  "I''m sure that-"  Op''skith''s eyes snapped around to meet hers with fierce intensity and the platitude caught in her throat.  She fell silent and lowered her eyes.  Op''skith felt... a little ashamed.  His tone and his words had hurt them, and they truly had wanted to help him.  But he was still ruled by his anger over the ambush and the manipulation.  Don''t draw steel unless you''re prepared to shed blood.  He turned for the door and growled.  "I''m going back to work.  Thanks for the tea."  It was still warming in the kettle as he left.

 Chapter 4 - Challenge

    It was late.  It was dark.  It was quiet and the kaer was asleep.  Op''skith was alone with nothing to do.  Alone with his thoughts.  He had been avoiding them for hours now, finding all the work and distractions he could, but now he was alone with nothing but time and thought.  Time and thought.  He silently begged the darkness of sleep to come and take him away, so his thoughts could be held at bay until morning when they could again be drowned in distraction.  The dread he had chained and put away in his mind groaned against the confines he had placed on it.  It demanded that he acknowledge it.  It rattled the bars of the cage he had put it in.  But he knew he could not so much as look at it.  The moment he set his eyes upon that darkness it would fill his mind.  It would consume him and destroy him.  He would return to the whimpering madman who broke his body against the rocks and he wasn''t sure he could ever chain the fear again after that.  But it would not let him rest while he denied it.


    The darkness of his room ate at him, reminding him of the hard void all around his tiny home.  But if he turned on the lights, then that would only show him the stone walls ready to destroy him.  The silence terrified him with its emptiness and lifelessness.  But noise would only echo off of hard walls, those cold confines on what little was alive in the world.  His own stillness frightened him.  Stillness was death.  But he was more afraid to move.  What would he do if he allowed himself to act now?  He sought meditation and the emptiness of thought, but chaos overwhelmed emptiness.


    Finally he rose from his bed, turning on the light crystal with a gesture and set his feet on the ground.  He stretched his neck one direction and then the other.  The familiarity of the action allowed him to ignore his thoughts as he went through the motions.  He stood and paced back and forth, looking for something to focus on.  His eyes glazed over various objects before being drawn to the Wheel of the Passions.  It was a simple one, with only twelve icons for the twelve Passions stitched into it.  He had made it himself, with his chaida''s help, many years ago.  There were far more elaborate and beautiful iconographies elsewhere in the kaer, made by far better craftsmen than he, but this one was better.  It invoked Astendar the Artist simply by its creation at his own hands.  It invoked Garlen of the Hearth by the memories with Op''tan it inspired.


    He gently removed it from the shelf and unfolded it on the floor, kneeling beside it.  He touched the symbols in turn, searching for some feeling to overcome the fear that was destroying him, some passion to push out the void.  He went first to Lochost, reminded by Rull''s invocation.  He searched for the Chained Dreamer, the Rebel Queen, the Hopeful Mystic... the images of the Passion escaped him.  His hope was too weak to face his fear.  He gently moved his hand over the others, no help from Upandal the Builder in this, and came to Floranuus.  He listened for the Laughing Flame, the Dancing Lightning or the Reveler In Shadow.  The Reveler in Shadow came to his mind, laughing in the face of darkness, but as the image laughed he could hear the ring of madness, not of joy.  He swept the images from his mind and continued around the circle.  He entirely skipped Vestrial the Trickster and Erendis the Keeper.  The kaer still included those, and Rashamon the King, among the twelve, but hadn''t sought their Passions in generations.  No one quite understood why, but they knew it had to be that way.  Even trying to ignore them, Op''skith felt the symbol of Erendis calling to him, warning him that fear was Passion as much as hope was, that salvation was in the void... Dis...  He shuddered and banished the thoughts.  There was something wrong there.  He hurried onward to Garlen.  Garlen of the Hearth, the Kindly Healer, the Humble Caretaker.  Garlen ought to be the one.  Afflictions of the mind and healing were her domain.  If anyone would help him wouldn''t it be her?  He tried to kindle the Passion, the Passion to be whole again, the Passion to be made well.  But in that Passion he felt the seed of pity and shame.  In the image of the healer that he called up, the face was that of S''tess.  He was not sick, he was afraid.  He was afraid of something that was true.  Was it an illness to see what was before your eyes?  The Passion died even as he kindled it.  It was not his.


    With that he abandoned the symbol of Garlen.  He neared the end of the circle and came to rest on the one he knew that he would.  Thystonius the Valorous, The Champion of Battles, The Climber of Mountains and The Rider of Rivers.  As the images flashed though his mind, strong as ever, his Passion flared.  It was the Passion to overcome a new challenge, to face  the impossible and to prove his excellence in pursuit of a worthy goal.  Was this fear not a worthy challenge?  Could he not face it and overcome it?  A new image formed in his mind: Thystonius the Unconquered.  He saw a young warrior, battered and injured beyond hope.  He saw him bleeding and surrounded by enemies without number.  He saw the certainty his defeat and death, but he saw in the eyes of the warrior that he would not give up.  Not while he had the strength to raise his arm and not when that arm was broken.  The Passion of the Challenge flowed through him like light and fire.  The image was new, it was not an incarnation of the Passion that Op''skith had ever seen or heard before, but it was true.  It was as certain as the blood in his veins.


    Op''skith rose, energized by the feeling and paced across the room.  His course was set.  The fear was not a sickness or a weakness, it was an enemy.  He would face it and he would weather its blows until it could no longer hurt him.  It would bleed him and break him, but in the end he would remain and the fear would fade.  But how?  How could he release that monster from its confines and survive?  He considered and he came to a plan.


    --------


    Op''skith made his way through the corridors of the kaer.  It was silent and dark here, all were asleep.  But he made his way further, beyond the habited areas and into the dark sections of the kaer.  They used perhaps half of the full space, even with many of them taking rooms sized for families as personal quarters.  It meant there were large areas of the kaer where there was no one.  Where noise would not disturb anyone''s rest or draw any help.  Op''skith chose a room at random, and then made his way to the small closet at the back of it.  He stared into the dark space.  It was empty, but small.  Small enough that there was barely enough room to sit down in it.  He carefully set down the small light crystal he had used to illuminate his way outside the door and tapped it, the dim light winking out.  He was plunged into complete darkness.  There was no distant light from the hall, no dimness for his eyes to adjust to.  The darkness was complete.  But he remembered where the closet and door had been clearly and easily slipped inside.  He settled himself on the floor, legs crossed, tail coiling around.  He reached out and pulled the door shut.  The space was very tight and confined now.  The faint breeze that pervaded the kaer was shut out of this tiny space.  He planted his hands on his knees and spoke aloud.  "For one hour, I will not leave this place.  For one hour I will not stand or open the door.  For one hour I will remain here and my hands will remain on my knees."  With that the terms were set.  He fixed the words in his mind.  He would be held by them.


    He waited.  It did not take long.  The fear had been building as he came here, as he looked at the closet and as he turned out the light.  His purpose to act had kept it at bay but now he was idle.  And in idleness it shook the cage he had kept it in.  *He was trapped.  Stone upon stone around.*  He steeled himself- and then relaxed.  He released his control upon his fear, no longer denying it and allowing himself to experience it fully.  It was almost a relief, at first.  The tension of containing the fear for so long eased and he felt relaxed.  Then the shadows began creeping in.  The weight of the earth began to creep in to the edges of his awareness.  Above and around, impossible weight held up by flimsy support.  Pressure beat down on his shoulders, pinning him to the ground.  He could feel his own weight pressed against the stone.  Scale on stone.  Scale against stone.  Life against stillness.  It was no contest.  Before life had come here there was dead stone.  When life had gone from here there would be dead stone.  Him, his family, all his friends, all his people were a spark against the void.  They had fought for survival down here for six hundred years, sacrificing, diminishing, weakening inch by inch.  But six hundred years was nothing to the stone.  The moment of light and life would wink out and all would be the still void again.  The weight he felt pushing him down was impossible.  He felt himself hunching forward under it.


    He felt the walls.  They were so close here.  He could sense them inches away on every side.  There was barely enough space for him to be here, let alone to move.  The confinement edged in on him.  The walls did not crush him now, but they confined.  All his movement, all his possibilities were bound within them.  He could run but they would stop him.  He could swim but only within a pool.  He could lie down as long as there was enough space.  The closeness at this moment pressed in from every side and he shivered under it.  He wanted to huddle into a ball, to be as small as he could.  He wanted to lash out and break the walls.  He wanted to smash down the door of the closet so it wouldn''t hold him anymore.  He wanted to smash down every door in the kaer so that they could never confine again.  But that would only move the walls a little further away.  They were eternal and within them he was nothing.  He could never become anything.  They would not let him.  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    And over it all, was the darkness.  It was a comfort, in a way.  For as long as it hid the stone, the walls, he could imagine they were not there.  He could dream that there was anything beyond.  He could live like he had before he had known.  Living in darkness he hadn''t needed to see what was within it.  But now he had seen.  The darkness was no longer a comforting shadow over the awful truth.  Now it was a reminder of how fragile the light was.  It was an oppressive nothing that ate into what little they had.  Light was as limited as food, as limited as life itself.  As the centuries passed, light retreated.  It retreated, as everything did, before stillness and darkness.  The march of darkness forward was as inevitable as the retreat of light.  The ignorant comfort of darkness had ended and now it came to end all.  The comfort of darkness would not return so easily.  Not unless you bring it back.  Not Unless you go to join it.


    Op''skith''s eyes snapped open, his heartbeat thundering in his ears.  The slow agony of dread was pierced and shattered by a spike of panic.  He didn''t think things like that.  That was not him.  But wouldn''t it be easier?  His eyes darted around, as if there was some escape from his own head.  No one will ever get out of here.  He twisted his body around, his tail suddenly thrashing, how could he get away?!  What good would it do to live another fifty years under dead stone?  He was breathing rapid shallow breaths, his eyes were wide and frantic.  What good does it do to live another day down here?  He hunched over, his body shaking.  When there is only one possible course of action...  Op''skith began to weep.  His throat choked as painful sobs forced their way out of him.  The thoughts continued.


    -----


    The hour passed.  Perhaps more, but certainly not less.  Op''skith dragged himself to his knees and crawled out of the closet, fumbling numbly for the light crystal.  His body felt painfully cramped and stretched out at the same time from the awkward position and tension.  Some part of him wanted to call up the image of the Unconquered Warrior, the Passion he had felt to face this fear as a challenge, but it wouldn''t come.  He just felt... deadened.  His thoughts came sluggishly and with great effort.  Trying to think or feel anything felt like scraping rough iron.  He mechanically made his way back from the abandoned section of the kaer to his own room.  The corridors stretched out and he crossed them.  If he leaned forward then his legs would catch him from falling by reflex, that way he didn''t have to tell them to take the next step.  Finally, he stumbled through the door and fell onto the bed.  Sleep came quickly this time.


    -----


    He woke late the next cycle to the sound of movement and activity outside his door. He felt... well, not exactly refreshed, but he felt like a living thing again.  He rose and went about his routine as normal.  Routine was pleasant.  He went out and found Soora again.  He watched and Risi worked.  Some people asked him questions.  He answered them simply until they stopped, then he went on.  They slipped from his mind like water.  The cycle seemed to be over almost as soon as it had begun, and he slept.


    Time passed.  Some number of cycles went on, perhaps a week.  Twice more, faced with the deepening pit of stone outside The Doors, he again found fear welling out of the numbness.  When he could no longer stand it, he returned to the small closet and released it as he had the first time.  It felt like he was sliding down a hole, inch by inch.  He could go down slower or faster, but ''up'' was an impossibility.


    People talked to him sometimes.  Rull, Jata and S''tess all came to him at one time or another and tried to start conversations of one kind or another.  He said what he had to until they left him alone again.


    At one point, he was eating late in one of the dining halls.  The room was nearly empty.  The food was cold, but he avoided unnecessary conversation this way.  He ate the food mechanically, one bite at a time.  His eyes watched the empty room with glazed disinterest.


    Then a flutter of movement drew his eye.  He watched impassively.  A small shape flew down from a crevice in the wall above the hall and collected a tiny meal before settling down to eat.  It was Edwin, or perhaps ''Elder'' Edwin.  He was barely a foot high, a miniature person with pale skin and long white hair.  His limbs were small and delicate, and looked almost comical with the long beard that hung down nearly to his feet.  But the most distinctive feature was the two large grey wings that sprang from his back.  He was a windling, the only one in the kaer.  The story Op''skith had heard said that, in the last days before the Doors closed and the long night began, two desperate windlings had begged to be sheltered from the scourge.  While their ancestors had already turned away many others they could not feed, for those were difficult times, they took in the tiny windlings, for they would eat little.  While windlings were among the most long lived of all namegivers, that pair had passed centuries ago, leaving their only son.


    Edwin had been only a curiosity as long as Op''skith had ever known.  He kept to himself and he stayed quiet.  Every child, naturally, marveled at his flight at some point, but Edwin ignored them and without any encouragement they moved on in time.  Op''skith watched him now, for lack of anything else to look at.  He seemed old and tired, and more than that he seemed... hollow.  He seemed uninterested in anything as he ate his small meal.  The only thing he carried with him was a short staff, barely six inches high, wrapped around with some silver-blue thread, finer than any other Op''skith had ever seen.  He had asked about it before and been told that it was apparently some part of some tradition of the windlings who had come to them.  None of them knew how it was created or used, but it was apparently part of secret skill those windlings had passed down for generations before the scourge.  Edwin finished his small meal, picked up the staff, and rose to fly back to his crevice in the wall.  Op''skith noticed the intricate curling patterns that ran along those wings.  They were barely visible, as the wings were entirely colored in shades of dark grey.  Op''skith realized they were the same shades of grey as the stone walls here and something tugged at his memory.  It was a tidbit he had read once, a long time ago.  Windling wings took on the colors of their surroundings, generally taking on bright hues of green or blue to form vibrant patterns similar to something called a ''butterfly''.  That description came from before the scourge, of course.  Op''skith supposed that the writer hadn''t considered how the wings might be colored on a windling who lived in a kaer.  He had also described windlings as lively and exuberant, even more so than t''skrang were reputed to be.  But those reputations were always inaccurate when you looked closely.  Individuals varied from the norm.  Op''skith supposed the quiet windling was one of those, though reputedly his parents had been much more lively.  Edwin vanished into the darkness above the hall.  Op''skith finished his meal and left.


    Later, at the end of the cycle, when Op''skith went through the motions of preparing for sleep, he could already feel a jumble of thought and emotion in the back of his mind and knew he would not be able to sleep.  As was becoming habit, he left, going to the small corner of the kaer where he would not be noticed or disturbed and settled himself down to wait out the terror and dread until he could collapse again.


    But as he settled down to think, opening the floodgates for fear to overwhelm him as it always did, something odd happened.  It didn''t come.  The dread was present, but it was faint and dull, not full and sharp.  But regardless of that, he could still feel that knot of tense emotion in the hollow of his mind.  It was pleasant.  Well, not pleasant.  He was far from comfort or relaxation, but it was the absence of expected pain, and that was enough right now.


    He let his thoughts drift in the darkness.  His arm was nearly healed now.  He could do something different tomorrow.  He had no thought of what it would be.  Making plans beyond routine felt impossible.  Or just unnecessary.  What was the difference.  Rull seemed to doing well.  He seemed happy with the work.  Good for him.  Grey wings.  Op''tan was still pushing people around more than usual, but with the different work groups organized his part was less frantic.  As he liked to say: ''Don''t do it all yourself.  If someone else can do it better then put them in charge and leave it alone.''  A coil of silver thread.  A heritage of generations ending with a last son.  The Vanguard hadn''t been doing combat training recently.  It was mostly because of all the other work they had to do, but perhaps it also had something to do with the fact that Op''skith hadn''t been around to goad them to it because of his injuries.  Years spent without anyone else of even his own species.  Decades.  Centuries.  Jata seemed a bit run down.  He was pleased to have the chance to practice his craft, but there was quite a lot to do all at once.  He seemed determined not to miss any chance to see his tools in action, to refine and improve them, as if the opportunity might disappear tomorrow.  A silent existence, a crevice in the dark.  Why did his thoughts keep circling back to Edwin?  He had barely so much as remembered the windling''s existence for years and now he kept popping up.  It didn''t matter.  His mind lapsed into quiet.


    Op''skith sat that way for a while, slouching against the cold stone at his back, eyes trying to adjust to darkness too deep to make out even a hint of shape or color.  He could feel a sense of melancholy settled over him.  It was gloomy and draining, but it still felt like relief to him.  He felt moisture drip down onto his chest.  He was crying again, apparently.  It wasn''t the painful, overwhelming sobbing from before.  This was a quiet sadness that welled out of him in a trickle.  He just sat and waited.  Cold stone, falling tears and hollowness.  He let time pass.  Hours later, the moment ended.  He went back to his room and he slept.