Hubris - 49. The Forest at the End of Time

He was no longer in the village of Caldreath, but in Fort Teague. He looked up at Barghast. “What in Monad’s name?”

The Okanavian took a cautious step towards the practitioner with a whine. “My beloved…what happened? You were screaming but I could not find the source of your pain. It’s not like when your soul leaves your body and injuries suddenly appear…There was nothing…”

“I’ll tell you,” the sorcerer croaked, “but first get me in the Void out of here.”

He hitched his pack over his shoulders. He started in the direction of the gates, overwhelmed by a superstitious need to get away from the fort. He made it past three tents before he realized he wasn't being followed. He whirled around. “Barghast…? Why are you just standing there? We need to leave!

Those were the words he wanted to say, his throat tight with fear. They snagged on something sharp when he saw the way Barghast was standing. His ears drawn back, his hackles raised, his lips drawn back in a bestial snark. His broad head was fixed on a point in the night sky Crowe could not yet see. He took another cautious step towards the lycan and stopped.

He could see movement in the blackness of the Void. It shot towards them, leaving streaks of scarlet light in its wake. Crowe squinted. The narrowness of its body suggested a human shape but it was still too far to be sure from this distance.

The light it cast below fanned out, spreading over the bed of empty tents; the puddles of shadow grew deeper, brighter as the comet drew closer.

The practitioner was reminded of the day Metropolis had appeared to him after he’d buried Petra's. Wile this instance was similar, it was different. On the day the Seraphim dropped through the sky to tell him he was the herald of Monad, Crowe had been terrified. The terror of a farm boy who has felt his entire world rip open and has come to realize just how insignificant he is.

This was an all too different kind of terror: not the terror of religious awe, but the kind of terror that made his nerves scream and his flesh want to crawl off the bone. The figure let out a scream at the exact same second Barghast fired his rifle.

The sound that came from the mouth of the vengeful wraith ripped into Crowe’s skull like hot knives. He clapped his hands over his ears, gaping up at the wraith from a kneeling position. His heart stalled in his chest. Through the screen of red light the shape of humanoid features were unmistakable: two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. Wings flapped with such force they knocked over tents as if they were little more than silk linens caught in a draft. What was not swept over simply went up in flames.

The wraith let out another shriek. Crowe shrieked with her, if only to give voice to his own pain. It felt as if his head was being crushed between two stones. A voice in the back of his mind told him he had to keep moving lest he wanted to go up in flames as well. He didn't and so he crawled, pressing himself flat to the ground as the wraith swooped by overhead. The ground rocked beneath him hard enough to make his teeth rattle in his skull. Something wet dropped from his nose and down from his ears. There came an explosion and the sound of wood being ripped apart.

It won't be long before she comes back for another round, he thought dazedly. His vision had become grainy with a field of dancing dots. Cautiously he lifted his head. His jaw unhinged like a trap door.

The entire Eastern wall of Fort Teague was completely gone. Smoking piles of rubble littered the ground. Ember spiraled towards the night sky. Crowe knew he needed to get up, to get moving, but his body wanted to press itself flat into the dirt and become as small as possible. Barghast came up behind him, hauling the practitioner into the air as if he weighed nothing at all. He barrelled through the smoke, his chest rising and falling as he charged towards the gate. Crowe shrank away from the heat of passing flames.

Each time the wraith screamed in fury, each time the ground shook, the herald prepared himself for a death that did not come. Once they were through the gates, he gestured for Barghast to put him down. They ducked behind the bulk of the wagon. Crowe sucked in a breath. He willed the frightened child in his mind to stop screaming.

They’d bridged half the distance back to Mammoth when the wraith began her search outside the fort. She’d slowed down her flight to a passing glide. Having slid beneath the bottom of a wagon, the sorcerer watched her passage. He couldn't shake the feeling that there was something familiar about her…the certainty he knew her. He had a hunch, but what good were hunches when you were too dead to prove them?

He willed all thoughts away. The wraith was swinging back for another round. Each blast of flame blasted pits in the ground, throwing up clots of baking soil. Mammoth galloped and brayed, searching wildly for his masters. Crowe had spent the past minute - or had several minutes passed, hiding under this particular wagon like frightened mice? fear had a way of turning the passage of time porous - trying to signal to the horse. Through the chaos he could feel Mammoth’s determination to reach his riders intermixing through his own, as if their courage was interlinked. As if to illustrate this, the shire horse shot towards where they hid at a full gallop, hooves kicking up black puffs of ash. White foam frothed against the pink lining of his lips. Crowe and Barghast tensed, readying themselves to lunge out from underneath the wagon and make a run for it.

As with previous attempts, the wraith seemed to anticipate their renewed attempt at escape. She howled, swooping low, raking the roof of the wagon with her claws. Splinters of wood rained down from above. Crowe felt the wood shudder around them as their own form of protection threatened to come apart. He felt a jolt of alarm from the horse pass through him.

Get back! he commanded with his mind. Besides him the barbarian rumbled something under his breath, but the words were lost in Crowe's waning attempt to concentrate. Each tick of his heart sent an answering spike of pain through his skull. She's not after you! She's trying to keep us boxed in so you can't get to us…I need you to stay out of sight, but remain close by…With a mixture of thoughts and images, the herald telegraphed his tenuous plan to the massive steed. If he could call it a plan. It was more of a risk - and a suicidal one at that. He received a reluctant pulse of acknowledgment from the shire horse. Had he ever encountered a more courageous beast? What he lacked in speed he made up for in determination and loyalty.

Crowe let out a sigh of relief. He could hear the thunder of Mammoth's hooves drifting away. He caught a fleeting glimpse of the wraith before she disappeared behind a pillar of smoke on the opposite side of the field.

“Crowe?” Barghast whined.

The practitioner inhaled only to suck in ash; there was more and more of it in the air just like when he’d been in Caldreath. We’ll die from the heat and smoke and inhalation if we don't think of something fast, he thought. Scrabbling furiously to remain cautious, he squeezed Barghast’s paw. “I need you to grab Mammoth while I distract her. When she flies in the direction of the fort again, I’m going to draw her attention while you swing around on horseback.”

Barghast nodded back with a reluctant whine. “I do not like this plan. I do not like the thought of being separated again, but I know we do not have a choice. As always I will do as you say.”

Crowe chuckled. His voice cracked like overheated clay. He kissed Barghast's cheek. “It's only for a moment…and then we’ll be in each other's arms again.”

Another shriek. Once more Crowe felt his teeth rattle in his skull. He forced himself through the pain. Rather than fear he felt only a growing sense of determination. I can do this. Monad is with me. His flame burns inside my chest.

The moment the wraith was past the wagon, Crowe pulled himself forward. He clawed at the dirt frantically until he was clear. He yanked his rod from the pocket of his robes. He darted back towards the fort, towards the place he wanted to get away from most at the moment. Sweat oozed from every pore in his body, thick and sharp and black-smelling. He kept searching in between the burning carts for torch coats and refugees only to remember that Barghast and he faced the wraith alone.

With this thought circling around the center of his brain, Crowe funneled all of his emotion into a single point. The current traveled up his arm into his wand like a built up charge. Sparks of white fire shot from the top. A single line of celestial light streaked towards the sky, striking the rolling underbelly of black above his head. He risked a glance over his shoulder. The bulk of Barghast's outline appeared from underneath the ruined wagon. Once he was out of sight, the practitioner resumed his search for the wraith. “C’mon, you bitch,” he hissed. “I’m right here where you want me. I’ve literally put myself on a platter.”

A few seconds later the wraith reappeared, growing larger, ever more real the closer she got. Crowe wasted no more time. He turned, breaking into a full sprint. He could feel the inferno of her fury burning a hole in his back. He did not dare look over his shoulder to see how much he was tempting fate. Up ahead Barghast was visible on Mammoth's saddle. It's a race, the practitioner thought. The question is who will reach me first: the wraith or the lycan?

The wraith let loose another fiery shriek. Her fury slammed into the ground where Crowe had been standing not a second before. Hissing clots of dirt pelted him, blistering his skin. Barghast was quickly closing the distance, already reaching for the sorcerer. The wraith was almost on top of the herald. Her eyes were beacons of rage that threatened to sear his flesh from its bones.

“Twin o’rre!” Barghast roared.

At the exact second the wraith unleashed another wall of fire, Crowe launched himself into the air. Barghast's paw closed around his arm. His feet left the ground. He swung his leg over the saddle as they passed directly beneath the wraith unscathed.

Crowe tried to suck in a breath only to make a weird hitching sound. By now the smoke had grown so thick it was impossible to breathe, impossible to see. He clung to Barghast, knowing the way he knew his own name that the barbarian would steer them to safety. This was the last thought shooting through his head: crisp and coherent. Even during this moment of terror it was a comforting thought.

His next when he opened his eyes and lifted his head was that they were still alive. The burble of water was his first clue they had left Fort Teague behind. His eyes searched the canopy of trees for the wraith. She, too, was gone…for the time being. I won't hold my breath, but here's to hoping we don't run into her again, he thought.

He tried to swallow. He winced. His throat stung like an open wound. Barghast emerged from the shadows, his eyes flashing. His tail wagged. “Good,” he said with a pleased nod. “You are awake.” He knew before the practitioner, offering the waterskin.

Crowe drank greedily. When he emptied the canteen of its contents, Barghast returned from the stream with more.

“Are we safe?”

“For the time being.”

“That thing that attacked us from the fort?”

“Once we were away from the fort it seemed to lose interest in us.”

The herald nodded. He started to get up. “We should get moving before she changes her mind and decides to pursue us again.”

Barghast intercepted his path to the horse. His eyes were focused on Crowe with their usual rapt attention. The weight of his paw was as warm and familiar as the earthy musk his fur exuded. “Your skin…Your beautiful skin. You have burns all over you.”

“They're not important.” The practitioner looked away, felt his cheeks burn, then forced himself to meet the Okanavian’s gaze. Even now you can't help but balk away from his comfort, a cruel voice whispered cunningly in the back of his mind. He sucked in a breath, willing air into his lungs. Air that no longer tasted of ash and smoke. Air thick with the smell of pollen and rich soil and the buzz of insects gliding through the gauzy darkness. “They hurt, but it's a pain I can live with for the time being,” he continued gently. “For now I will have to. We are still a ways from the black spot.”

The barbarian nodded reluctantly. He receded away slowly, hovering as if afraid the darkness would swallow the sorcerer whole the moment he turned his back. “It is as you say, twin o’rre.”

They walked through the tangle of tree growth side by side. Barghast insisted on leading Mammoth by the reins, brushing growth out of Crowe's way with his thick arms, and passing him the waterskin. The sorcerer could hear the wheels turning in the Okanavian's head. He knew he wanted to ask but wouldn't out of reverence for Crowe.

“When I touched the paint it was like I was there,” he said in a strange thick voice.

Barghast's ears twitched in alarm. “The black spot?”

“Caldreath. I saw what happened there a hundred years ago. What the Theocracy did to the villagers.”

For the next hour he relayed all he’d seen in his vision. Not once did his voice rise beyond the clinical tone in which he’d begun this recounting with. His gaze remained fixed on a single point that only he could see. When he finished it seemed nothing about their surroundings had changed. Not the trees, not the position of the stars. An odd thought considering they were on foot, moving at a solid pace, yet they should still be making some progress. We’ve been on the move this entire time.

He reached into the pocket of his robes. It's time for a joint.

Barghast was silent for a long moment. Crowe was grateful for this. While the deep purr of the lycan’s voice was always a comfort, the practitioner needed the time to think. The time to breathe.

“The man…” Barghast started with a perplexed cock of his head; his ears twitched in contemplation. “...the one you call Matthiesen…he said this has all happened before. He is the only one who has any memory of it, which means we are not meant to remember. Not yet. Otherwise I would certainly remember what had happened at the fort...”

“Me too.” Crowe laughed. He didn't like the edge of hysteria he heard in it. He took a long drag from his aether joint. Sweet smelling smoke drifted up towards the treetops. Barghast passed the waterskin to him. He sipped at it before passing it back.

“It is possible when you touched the message the refugees left back at the fort, you unlocked a memory that was latent?”

Crowe stopped. His lips were tilted in an odd smile. Barghast scanned the trees around them, his paw sliding towards the rifle strapped to his back, a habit so natural to him the practitioner knew he often did it without thinking. “Did I say something wrong, my beloved? Am I being a foolish pup again?”

The herald laughed. This time there was no edge of hysteria to it. He scratched at the thick patch of fur on the lycan's chest. “No. The opposite in fact. The level of intelligence you possess continues to astound me, Barghast. Not that I ever thought you were stupid…but we do come from different cultures. And yet I have thought many times during our travels together that the Theocracy should not underestimate your people lest their ignorance be their undoing.”

Barghast puffed his chest out with a triumphant growl. He hooked an arm around Crowe’s waist, pulling him to him. “I am quite intelligent, aren't I?”

Crowe stood on the toes of his boots. He dropped a kiss on the lycan's snout, earning himself a whine of pleasure and a lick on the chin. “No doubt about it. Just make sure you don't let it go to your head lest arrogance should become your undoing. That’s good advice for the both of us.”

They walked and walked but the feeling that they were going nowhere persisted. Crowe smoked three joints in the space of an hour. The aether curling through his bloodstream numbed the panic he would have felt otherwise, diluting it into something akin to wonder. At one point he looked up at the stars twinkling above their heads like spectators waving at them encouragingly from the cosmos and thought, We’re safe. There’s nothing around us but trees and the stars. No one is shooting at us, no one is trying to twist our minds to their own ends. No evil spirits to taunt my dreams. So why not enjoy the peace…even if it’s just for a moment?

He was so lost in the pleasure of this thought, he did not realize the lycan had stopped until he walked face first into him. Crowe sputtered in surprise. He staggered back, blinking. “Barghast…what in the Void?”

He stopped. Barghast dropped the reins, advancing forward several paces. For a moment he blended in completely with the darkness…or seemed to be swallowed by it. The thought entered Crowe’s mind like an intruder and would not leave despite his objections. He felt his heart kick up and a voice cry out in his mind. He had to bite his tongue to keep from voicing it out loud. He reminded himself Barghast was there. He appeared in the center of a clearing, his towering form carved out by blocks of moonlight. He faced East, pointing his ears up at the sky. The agitated swing of his tail suggested he was uneasy. When he came back to Crowe, his eyes were large and his ears were pressed flat against his head. “I do not like this, twin o’rre,” he whined. He held his rifle in his paws. Crowe knew it was just as much his talisman in the same way the practitioner wore a necklace that served as his own personal talisman.

“I know.” For the first time since smoking the first aether joint, the first note of alarm crept into his voice. He didn’t want to feel it. He wanted to smoke another joint. He wanted to smoke another joint until he was so high he no longer cared what happened. A luxury I don’t have. A luxury I’ve never had.

“The trees and the stars are the same,” Barghast insisted. “I am a foolish pup. I’ve had the hunch that we’ve been stuck in the same jungle when we should not be for hours. Only now am I sure. Only now can I admit to myself.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “I hear water through those trees.”

Crowe did not answer. His eyes were fixed on the dark shroud behind Barghast. He led Mammoth forward. Barghast followed alongside him. The occasional whine told Crowe that the lycan was trying to contain his fear and was not able to do so. He could feel his own fear growing, bypassing the gauze the aether had laid over his undeniable uneasiness. Now that fear pierced him like a spearhead as he came to a stop before the same stream he’d woken up by after Barghast and he had escaped from Fort Teague. How can we be here when we walked in only one direction? And yet we are back where we started as if we walked in a loop.

“I do not like this, twin o’rre,” Barghast whined a second time. “I’m scared.”

Crowe did the only thing he could think of to do. The thing he supposed a child might do. He burrowed his face into Barghast’s chest as tight as he could. “I am too and I have no idea what to do. Monad is not being of much help at the moment. As much as I hate to say it, maybe we’re exactly where we are supposed to be. But I am exhausted and we’ve been walking for hours and the canteens are empty. We need rest. We need to come at this with clearer heads.”

Barghast clung to him. He was trembling so hard the practitioner felt as if he was caught in the throes of a minor earthquake…yet even now in his terror the lycan was oh so gentle with him. “I do not need to sleep…I wouldn’t be able to even if I did. The wraith might come back while we are in the middle of the night. This is her doing. I am sure of it. She doesn’t want us to leave. What if we are already trapped in the black hole? The black hole she created?”

Crowe lifted the lycan’s paw to his mouth. He kissed a finger. “We will figure a way out of this. We always do. No mountain can stand before us, remember?”

Barghast laughed. He leaned down, swiping his tongue sloppily across Crowe’s face. “Using my own words against me, my beloved? Very wise. You always have been from the moment I met you. There is nothing I can’t survive with you by my side.”

Crowe kissed his hand a second time. “I’ll grab the bedroll.”

Three minutes later they were stretched out beneath the stars. The entirety of the practitioner’s body save his head was shielded by the Okanavian’s body. Despite the aches that bloomed throughout his body, Crowe could not sleep. He could not shut off his mind.

“Barghast?”

The barbarian pressed the cold tip of his snout to the sorcerer’s ear. “Twin o’rre?”

“Will you tell me a story until I fall asleep?”

“What kind of story would you like to hear? I have many.”

Crowe voiced the thought that he had been holding onto for months. He’d waited patiently, waited for the day when the lycan would tell him and he could wait no longer. “In Roguehaven you told me you knew me before we ever met. You said you went to your seer and you saw me in a window of blue light.”

He felt something inside Barghast bolt. “But you need sleep…it is a story for another time.”

“Damn you to the Void!” the practitioner cursed before he realized he was angry. Now that he was angry he couldn’t take it back. The moment Barghast relinquished his hold in surprise - very rarely had Crowe lost his temper with him and he certainly had never cursed at him - Crowe wriggled out of his embrace. He shot to his feet, rounding on the barbarian. “I have waited and waited for you to tell me! Any time I think about it, I chase it away by thinking of something else because I am sick to death of you dodging it. You can’t tell me something like that and tell me not to be curious. Especially when you stop to consider the current circumstance we find ourselves in. So you are going to tell me right now or…”

Barghast’s ears, which had been pressed back, now lifted up cautiously, his eyes wide with fear. “Or…?”

“No belly rubs.”

“No,” Barghast whined. He lowered his head.

Crowe ignored the guilt pooling in his own belly. I’ve been more than patient. I am not waiting another second longer. “Or kisses.”

Barghast let out a braying sound that made Crowe regret bringing up the subject at all. It was the sound a wounded animal makes after they’ve been shot. Barghast was covering his face with his paws now as if he wanted to hide. Crowe opened his mouth to apologize, but before he could Barghast lifted his head.

“I am sorry, twin o’rre. I did not wish to upset you. Of course you have been very patient…and I don’t want you to stop giving me belly rubs…kisses. I need your belly rubs and most of all I need your kisses.”

“So you’ll tell me? Because on the night you told me you saw me ‘in a window of light’ you made it sound like a good thing, but then keep avoiding it. Was meeting me that night a bad thing?” He felt a bolt of pain shoot through his heart. The next question filled his mouth with the cold taste of steel but he voice it already. “Do you regret meeting me?”

Barghast made that terrible pained animal a second time and it was just as bad as the first. Before Crowe could apologized he was being snatched off his feet. He managed to say the lycan's name once before he was bombed with kisses both human and Okanavian. “Regret seeing you? I have been a foolish pup if I have ever made you think I regret seeing you…even on that day. Oh my sweet.”

“Barghast, I know you don't regret meeting me,” the practitioner managed to squeak. The heels of his boots dangled eighteen inches above the ground. “I know you don't like to talk about home. I don't either…and I know I haven't been the most forthcoming myself and I will tell you about my home if you want, but will you put me down. You're going to crush my ribs if you don't ease up.”

Barghast set him down on the ground delicately. He leaned forward until their foreheads touched. “I am sorry, my beloved. Did I hurt you?”

Crowe laughed again in spite of his aching ribs. He dropped half a dozen kisses along the length of the barbarian’s snout. “No, you didn't hurt me, my lovable lycan. You never have.”

Barghast sat on the bedroll before pulling the herald into his lap. “And I never will. But I must also remember to be careful.” His voice oscillated between its usual deep reverberation and a high-pitched whine that meant he was emotional or distressed. Crowe listened intently, clinging to the Okanavian as tightly as the Okanavian clung to him. “I know you aren't weak by any means, but I forget how small you are. How delicate. I suppose I’m stalling.”

The practitioner chuckled. “Yes, you are.”

“Lay your head against my chest and listen.”

Crowe did, resting his cheek directly over Barghast’s heart where he could feel it kicking powerfully. He closed his eyes, inhaled the earthy aromas of soil and pollen and sweat and aether. For the time being they were not stuck in a wood that had no intention of letting them out; for now it was the same as it had always been from the moment they met: just the two of them.

Barghast began his tale. The familiar reverberations of his voice pulled the practitioner into the past, into a place he had never seen before.

“I told you a little what it’s like there. How the clans fight each other and themselves. Neverending political clashes. You say the Theocracy underestimates us…that they think we are just dumb animals…and that their arrogance will be their defeat. Perhaps you are right. But are any of us truly any different, the practitioners from the lycans, the lycans from the torchcoats? It was this sense of arrogance in my own clan that always made me feel like an outsider long before I ventured beyond the canyons. My father Rhaderghast and his expectations was a big reason for this. No matter what I did, I never gained his approval. I was a constant disappointment to him.

Our family is different than your families in the North. We don’t have one mother but many. I had four. Four mothers to take care of a dozen very rambunctious pups.” Barghast chuckled, giving Crowe’s forehead a single lick. “You better believe Rhaderghast needed all the help he could get to keep us all in line. He would tell you I was the worse one of all if you were to listen. If I’m to be honest I am glad you will never get to meet them or see my home.”

Crowe lifted his head, his eyes flashing with alarm. “Why? I know you hate it there. I can certainly understand that. But there is no part of you I don’t want to know. There is no part of you I don’t love. Even the parts of you that bring you displeasure.”

Barghast’s eyes twinkled mischievously. He pressed the pad of a single finger to the practitioner’s lips. “Quiet, twin o’rre. Let me tell my story. I know you love every part of me…as I love every part of you. It just…” His voice rose into a whine. “It pains me to think of the life I had before I found you. Do you understand?”

“I do. It pains me to think about my life before you were in it, too.”

The Okanavian cleared his throat. He continued. “My brother Shibas and I were born in the same litter, but as the larger of the two, my father groomed me to take over the clan. Or should I say he tried to at first. But even from the age of a very young pup, still nursing off the teats of my den mothers I knew my own mind. I was not to be corralled into passivity as everyone else. From the moment we were able to walk on our own two feet and carry a spear, Rhaderghast taught us to guard the clan and fight to protect what was ours from the Theocracy patrols who were stupid enough to venture into our territory. This is where we learned how to use firearms.”

Crowe felt Barghast’s heart speed up with excitement at the memory’s recall. “ You never knew what they would bring with them. Weapons of every kind. Rifles, pistols, blades. Grenades. They would come to the desert to enslave our people in the same ways they have yours. Unlike your people, the Theocracy has not pushed us to the brink of extinction. Serves them right, I’d say. All night we would walk around the parameter, guarding it from rival clans. Mostly from Kheker, my father’s constant adversary. He would send his clan members out in the very middle of the night to snatch our findings out from under us. There were many bloody skirmishes.

“In spite of my prowess as a fighter and size - I’ve always been quite larger than Shibas - and my aptitude with firearms, I still never gained Rhaderghast’s approval while my brother soared into his good graces. This is not a personality flaw on Shibas’ part, so I don’t think I begrudge him the closeness he has achieved with my father. My brother always did his best to bridge the distance between Rhaderghast and I, but some bonds are just not meant to be.”

Petras’ face wavered before Crowe’s mind. He nodded, understanding in his own way.

“Shibas, while not as big as me, has always been much more suited to be clan leader than myself. What my father was too thick-headed to understand is that Gaia made Shibas to think about others while my purpose was to leave my clan. To be with you, twin o’rre.” Barghast raised Crowe’s hand to his lips. He inhaled the practitioner’s scent deeply, squeezing his eyes shut in rapture.

“There were many days where I felt like the people who were supposed to know and love me were absolute strangers. I could never articulate this feelings with words, but it always propelled me away from my clan, not compelled me towards them. When Rhaderghast, my brother, and I went out on the prowl, I strayed out on my own. I was a very selfish pup for doing this. I did it because I knew it would upset my father and Shibas would do his best to get the fool to see things from my perspective - until this day I am not sure if Shibas has ever succeeded in this endeavor. I hope I never found out and I suppose that is the most selfish thing of all.

“Outside of Shibas I only found an ally in one other person while in the desert: Llamia, the seer. The one Gaia takes the form of when she guides me. I haven’t heard from her in weeks.”

Crowe resisted the urge to lift his head. “Does that concern you?”

“No.” The barbarian answered the question so hastily it was almost a bark. “No,” he pressed on more gently, combing his digits through Crowe's hair. “I’d be lying if I said she's been helpful in the past and I’m not grateful to her. I’d be a lying pup as well as a foolish one. She and Monad both led me to you when you were taken to Fort Erikson. This leads me to believe they are allies the way you and I are allies.”

Crowe nodded but remained silent. He hadn't mistaken the uneasiness he’d heard in the Okanavian's voice.

“I know your relationship is different from mine with Gaia and I am grateful to her for guiding me to the herbs I needed when you were sick…otherwise you surely would have perished. But I also don't trust her. Not all the time.”

“I know what you mean in my own way. I don't always trust Monad.”

Barghast brushed Crowe's hair out of his eyes. “But you always seem to follow him so willingly.”

Crowe laughed. The sound was bitter and without humor. “It doesn't usually feel like I have much of a choice. He’s literally inside me. He’s inside all practitioners, but after we left Vaylin he felt stronger. Now he's being very quiet. He has a way of giving information on a need to know basis, and when he does it's not always in the most timely of manners. But enough of that. Please continue. You were telling me about Llamia.”

“Aye.” The barbarian's molten gold eyes flashed with something akin to fondness. “Llamia was my mentor. Spiritually she was a den mother to me in a way not even the den mother who carried me was. Like Cenya, she was the oldest member in our tribe. The most revered. Even more so than my father. It is said she is even older than the mountains in the desert. She was - still is - revered not only to commune with spirits and divine the future, but she was sought after for her infinite wisdom. But she was my friend. She may not have said it with words, but I always knew I was her favorite. For as long as I can remember she told me my destiny was beyond the desert, which is why Rhaderghast always resented it when I visited her.

“Do you recall how I told you Rhaderghast would put on those performances. On the night I saw you for the first time, he put on such a performance. One of the same two performances he always did.” Barghast's tail tapped agitatedly against the ground. “I can remember that night all too well. The heat from the torches. The lazy drone of the insects. The smell of spirits.” Barghast chucked. “The strength of our spirits would put you under in a few sips, twin o’rre. Lycan play can be particularly rough. After the show ended and the audience started giving my father the usual round of applause - as if he'd never heard the words hundreds of times before - how my skin buzzed and I gnashed my teeth together in fury. No amount of spirits could put right how wrong I felt.

“And then I noticed her beside me. As usual I'd never heard her passage. Even for one her age no lycan has a lighter step than Llamia. I was not surprised to see her because she managed to sneak up on me, but because she rarely came down from her cave unless it was to bless a fresh litter of Cubs in the name of Gaia. Those who needed her wisdom always went to her and this was no easy journey. Not only is the cave a good distance from the clan, but there are many dangers in the desert. Dangers I will tell you about on another night, my beloved.

“I always went to her when I was feeling particularly angry and depressed which was often in those days…and so my first thought was that she had something important to tell me to have traveled so far from her dwelling. ‘You and I must talk, pup,’ she told me that night. She never called any of us by our names, not even my father, for we were all pups to her. But when she looked at me it was with the respect and infection she did not hold for the others. When she told me this I went with her immediately. I did not hesitate. Many times she had told me my destiny was beyond the desert and that when it was time she would come to me, take me back to the cave, and reveal it to me.

“The final journey to her cave felt like the longest of all. Though she could very well live a thousand years longer I doubt she will want to. The bones in her legs were riddled with arthritis and she had several large tumors. She seemed particularly agitated that day. The spirits were in a high mood that evening and I knew their incessant chattering had to be unpleasant for her.

“And yet unlike before I felt completely calm. I was comforted by the fact that Gaia had a plan for me and that my life would not be confined to the desert. She did not say a word to me the whole journey, only to her spirits. Once inside the cave I breathed in the smell of the perfumes she used for I knew I would never return to her. You done much to turn the cave into a comfortable home, letting the floors and walls with the pelts of her prey. Before the air inside the cave was a place of calm; that is why we would go when I was feeling restless; just like you, twin o'rre, she had an aura around her that was a tonic of the soul.

“On that night the air inside the cave was frenetic. I'd glimpse spirits of the wild in the past but that night they moved freely through the dark like I've never seen them before. The key was full of whispering voices. Excited voices. Voices that cried out and despair and shouted in rage. I should have been frightened. Many spirits, foul prowling things that would come in the middle of the night to feast on our livestock or drag pups out of their tents…and yet somehow I knew these spirits were not of the same ilk.”

“The spirits of the wild are hungry things who are unable to fulfill themselves. They devour flesh but they find no satiation…they are no different from the spirits who the necromancers cursed you with. But these spirits while restless were not malignant. The moment I saw them I felt not fear but despair. I wanted to whine. I wanted to howl in the name of whatever suffering they had been to. But I couldn't.

“I remember how Llamia approached me with a bowl full of burning leaves and smoke. She asked me to sit on the ground before her and told me not to be afraid. ‘I know you are,’ she told me oh so gently and in her voice I heard the love I knew she felt for me. ‘It is okay to be afraid. I know you are. We all fear the things we do not understand. Even in the many centuries I have been alive, even after everything I’ve seen, there is so much I haven't seen and still I am so very afraid. But you have no reason to be. Not on this night.’ She rested her hand on my shoulder. She wagged her tail with joy. She smiled. These were only things I’d seen her do with den mothers going into labor and pups.

“ ‘Breathe in this smoke,’ she said, waving the bowl in front of me.

“ ‘What will happen?’ I asked.

“I knew I shouldn't have. In the past she always scolded me for my impatience - she hates to be interrupted when she was teaching - but on that night it didn't upset her. She was crying too. We both were. She told me that once I inhaled the smoke my soul would leave my body. Just like you do. She said the smoke would help me to do this. It was the same aether you smoke only I did not know this at the time.

“I might have felt some initial fear at this prospect but it was quickly dismissed by a feeling of eagerness: this was the moment I had been waiting for my whole life; I could feel it in my bones. And I trusted her. Trusted her with my life in the same way I trust you, my beloved, so I inhaled the smoke. The moment the aether hit my blood stream it was like what I had imagined plunging into the ocean to feel like. An ocean of calm. Only instead of sinking it felt as if I was rising.

“After a second or two - it could have been a minute, lycans do not measure time in the same way your people do, but I knew it wasn't long - I lost awareness of my surroundings. I was still aware of the spirits but their presence was like smoke…it's there but it's of little consequence to you. There was another kind of smoke. A pale glowing smoke that filled the room and pulled with an inner blue light. Through it I could see Llamia sitting in the room the same as I was: sitting in the center of the room, her legs crossed, her eyes closed. I knew the position could not be comfortable due to the bone disease that plagued her, but she looked completely calm.

“Though her lips did not move, her voice spoke inside my head. Again, she reminded me not to be afraid. She told me to give into the effect that the aether would have on me. Any fears I had, she put to rest. She told me that spirit-walking is a dangerous ability. Once it was an ability all lycans had, but it had long since diluted with the passing of Iterations, but now only the oldest, wisest of lycans are able to do it without the help of aether.

“I felt my spirit leave my body. I had no arms. I had no legs. I had no shape. It was like being a cloud of smoke.”

Crowe emerged from the tale Barghast was spinning long enough to nod. “I know exactly what you mean. That's what it's like for me, too.” He took another drag of his aether joint before lapsing back into silence.

“I passed through the ceiling of the cave,” Barghast rumbled, shifting slightly beneath the practitioner. He pressed another kiss to his forehead before continuing. “All at once I was a bird with wings soaring towards the sky. I could see the Void above me and the distant lights that hands can never reach; I could see the ground and the mountains shrinking until they were nothing but little points. Llamia’s voice called to me, an echo that rode the desert wind. And then I was plummeting. Falling so fast the sand and the mountains rose up to me in a blur. Even though I had no body, the sensation of falling felt all too real. But I was not afraid. I was not afraid because the seer told me to trust her, and I did. I trusted her in a way I will never be able to trust Gaia.

“When I reentered my body again, the seer was gone, but I could still feel her. I could still hear her voice in my head. The cave had changed. All the animal pelts Llamia had put on the wall were gone. In their place was a mural that covered the wall. It was impossible to make out the figures and formations that had been seared into the walls by Okanavian hands. While I could recognize the shapes I could not give them names. It was a mural of your people and my people uniting as one. It showed them amassing beneath a point in the sky, hands and paws linked together. From that point in the sky a single point in the sky emerged. You, my beloved. They had gathered and united in the name of your arrival. I’m not sure how long I gawked at the mural, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to think before the seer told me to turn around and face my destiny.

“I turned around, my heart racing in my chest, but again I was not afraid.

“In the center of the cavern was a small blue light no bigger than the bronze coins I’ve seen you trade with. My heart began to beat really fast. I’d never before seen a light so blue, so beautiful. Slowly but steadily it began to grow bigger, wider, as if someone were trying to push through from the other side until it was a perfect rectangle that filled the center of the cave.

“Someone was trying to push through from the only side, for a hand eventually popped through. A pale hairless hand without claws. Not the paw of a lycan, but the hand of a human man. Bit by bit he emerged. A man wore torn rags for clothes. A man with skin as pale as milk and with hair as black as the night sky. He smelled of honey and pine. I could tell he had been through a lot of hardship. Both by the scars imprinted in his skin and the kind of scars that can only be seen when you look into someone's eyes.

“Once he was fully emerged he simply stood there, looking around and blinking.

“My first thought was that he was a torchcoats. Those were the only humans I’d seen. I’d fought and killed several dozen of their kind, but all I knew of them was what father told me. It didn't take me long to surmise that the man who had just stepped out of the window of blue light was not a torchcoat.

“I can't tell you how long he stood there, looking so lost, so confused, so lonely. I’d spent much of my youth thinking no one could ever felt as indifferent and unwanted and unbelonging as I did, but in that moment I knew I was wrong. Then the man lifted his head and looked at me with eyes that were as blue as the light he’d stepped out of. When he looked at me he recognized me. And though I had never had a conversation with him, asked him his name, or laid eyes on him, a deep part of me recognized him, too.

“He said my name as if he couldn't believe it was me. He took a step towards me and lifted a hand as if he wanted to reach out and touch me, but then stopped. I wanted to ask him how he knew me. I wanted to ask him what his name was. I wanted to ask him what he was and how he had stepped out of the window of light, but I couldn't bring myself to move or speak. I was not paralyzed. I was spellbound. In that moment he was positively the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. He smelled of aether. He smelled the exact same way you smelled. Like honey and pine. Like the mountains and snow in the north.

“He told me things then. Strange things that didn't make sense. He said that though we had not met we knew each other. He said that we were inextricably bound and part of something much bigger. As he talked his voice shook. When he looked at me it was with such love and tenderness and despair it made my heart ache even as I told myself I was clearly talking to a mad man. He continued to say strange things that made no sense, but I could not have turned away if I’d wanted to. He said that soon we would meet again. He said that when we met, I would meet a younger version of him. He said I would know him but he would not know me.

“When he reached for me a second time, something in me became unmoored. I went to him and took him in my arms. He was so small, so delicate I was afraid of breaking him. When he began to sob I was sure I’d hurt him without meaning to. I sat down, pulled him into my lap, and pressed his head against my chest the way I am doing with you right now. I felt his heart's kicking against mine. I forgot about the window of blue light. I forgot about Llamia and I forgot about my woes for I discovered someone whose heart ached more than my own. Through his tears he told me many strange other things - that the world we are living in is a nightmare. A mistake. Everything that happens in exist within it was never meant to be. He told me we were the only ones who can make things right. The whole time he talked, he kissed me and I kissed him and he ran his fingers through my fur and I ran my fingers through his hair and I basked in his scent.

“The man was you, twin o’rre. Not the man you are now but the man you will become. It was you not Gaia who sent me on this path; it has always been you. We fell asleep like that together and when I woke up the next morning he and the window of light were gone as if it had all been a dream. But I knew all that I'd witnessed and the man I'd held to me had been his real install it as you are now, my beloved - even if I can't entirely make sense of this night after all this time.”

Crowe looked up at the sky, a black diamond-studded quilt that held more questions than answers. If it holds anything at all, he thought bitterly, his mood every bit as dark. His body felt as heavy and cumbersome as stone. During the remainder of Barghast's tale, he felt disconnected from his body - the same sensations Barghast and he had experienced when they spirit-walked. He wanted to speak but he didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to think. All he felt was the heavy weight in his stomach.

Barghast said his name but his voice echoed has if the sound was coming from a great distance; never mind that they were right up against one another.

“Crowe?” The unease in the likens voice reflected the unease the practitioner felt clanging around in his own chest.

“I'm here. I'm with you.”

“You're being very quiet. Have I upset you?”

“Not you…”

“You believe me, don't you?”

“Of course. I know that you would never lie to me. “ The sorcerer reached up, scratching at the Okanavian's chin. The lycan closed his eyes. His expression settled into a mask of complete contentment. “I'm not sure I like what all this implies.”

A single molten gold eye creaked open reluctantly. “Implies?”

“You said the man who stepped out of the cave was the man that I would become. You said his clothes were torn and he was scarred. He told you that you were supposed to find me - the younger version of me. Which also believes me to believe this has all happened before. It also means we failed.”

That morning Crowe extricated himself from Barghast's hold and went into the stream to bathe. The lycan must have sensed his need to be alone for a moment, staying on top of the bedroll. It didn't stop the barbarian from searing rings of longing and concern into the flesh between the practitioner’s shoulder blades.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so quiet,” Crowe said when he returned with a towel wrapped around his waist. He lowered himself back down into the Okanavian's lap. “I’m not upset with you.” He ran a hand up the length of Barghast's broad forearm. “What you told me last night doesn't change anything. It doesn't change what we have to do and it certainly doesn't change how I feel about you. It only strengthens what you and I have always known about each other: We are inextricably bound.”

“Indeed.” The morning light cast kaleidoscopic shards of pink around the lycan's eyes. Gently he removed the towel from around Crowe's shoulders. His gaze crawled hungrily over the herald’s pale gleaming flesh. “You are positively exquisite, twin o’rre.” He lowered his head and ran his tongue along the sorcerer's collar bone, eliciting a shiver of pleasure. “I cannot stop looking at you…or tasting you.”

“Not I you, my sweet lycan.”

Barghast tucked a stray lock of hair behind Crowe's ear. His ears flattened slightly, his head inching forward. Crowe did not miss the minuit twitch of the snout though he knew Barghast was trying to hide his anxiety. “What is on your mind, my beloved?”

The practitioner smiled in such a way it made the lycan's tail tap excitedly against the ground. “I was just thinking I’m glad you told me what you did last night. At first I was frightened, sure that when you glimpsed a future version of myself you’d glimpsed a doomed future. A future in which I failed like my predecessor. It took some reframing, but I came to the conclusion that if this cycle keeps repeating, then we can change it and there is nothing that can stand in our way. It means there’s a way out of these accursed woods. So, what do you say we find this Caldreath?”