The snow and ice crunched under Brynwolfn’s feet as she made her way over the mountain. The sun was only hours away from setting, and as she looked at the horizon she knew that if she turned around within the next few minutes, she would likely make it back to the nearest entrance tunnel before dark. If she kept going, she would be forced to either make her way back across icy cliffs and slopes in total darkness, or try to find enough shelter from the wind to survive camping for a night on the mountain’s face as the temperature plummeted. 

But Waybreaker was only days away from completion, and she was headed to the last spot where her clues could possibly be pointing, so she either needed to find what she was looking for on this trip, or admit defeat and go back empty handed with no means of completing her plans to break Keledrain’s grip on her people. She shifted the pack on her shoulder blades and continued forward. 

She knew the destination she was looking for couldn’t be too much farther now because of the supply requisite forms from eighty years before that. It may have been a different general and a different Faraluken in those days, but some things never changed, and she knew exactly how to calculate the quantities on a supply requisite form based on the number of warriors in the unit, and how far they intended to travel for their mission, training or not. Thanks to the number of requests for helmets on the requisite form, she had a reliable headcount, so she had no trouble figuring out the intended distance from there. With every step she took, she was certain she was near where the Lost Warriors had been sent. 

Of course finding the clues that had brought her this far had been both difficult and risky. She knew from Brekoth’s reaction during their last conversation that it would be unwise to be too obvious in her search for information about the Lost Warriors. The general sentiment among the Hulfraust was that Keledrain’s network of spies and secret police among the dwarves had fallen apart more than a generation ago, either from turning on each other or simply from Keledrain’s neglect. After all, she seemed to believe that simply the memory of the fear she caused for decades would still be enough to keep her subjects in line indefinitely. Though the possibility of this crumbling of power seemed plausible to Brynwolfn, there was far too much at stake for her to go carelessly testing that theory. So she had been careful. 

Rather than asking around about the Lost Warriors or trying to find records kept by the army’s historical documents, she began searching for periods of missing information in records kept by the various guilds. To her delight, she found that Brekoth’s wisdom had held true. Sometimes silence did indeed speak louder than anything else. Brynwolfn had found a two month period from eighty years before where all of the records for every guild had been pressed smooth and blank. Two months had simply been erased from Hulfraust history. But Brynwolfn didn’t need those two months exactly if she could look at what happened before and after. 

In the end, it was the Tanners Guild that provided Brynwolfn with her next breakthrough. Though one of the less prominent guilds, their records were exactly what Brynwolfn needed. There was a steady demand for leather goods among the Hulfraust, so the supply from one year to the next tended to be consistent as well. On top of that, they wasted very little, and they didn’t frequently use resources for experimentation and development like the blacksmiths and alchemists did, so their output almost always matched their input. So when Brynwolfn spotted a large discrepancy in the Tanners Guild’s annual inventory report from the year before the event and the annual report from the following year, she felt a thrill of excitement. 

Six tanned and treated canvases of mammoth goat hide had been written off as a loss, which made no sense under normal circumstances. Theft was incredibly uncommon among the Hulfraust nation, and mammoth goat hide wasn’t particularly valuable without being fashioned into something first. One canvas alone could be damaged by a careless apprentice, but even then it was unlikely that the entire canvas would be written off as a total loss. A single canvas sheet of mammoth goat hide was typically between ten to twelve feet long and between eight to ten feet wide, so even if half the canvas was ruined, the rest could still be cut into smaller pieces and used elsewhere for the guild to trade and get some value out of. Writing off even one mammoth goat hide seemed out of character for the Tanners Guild, and six seemed absurd. 

Fortunately, Brynwolfn’s decades of experience moving through the ranks of the Hulfraust army helped her piece together that mystery as well. She had served as a quartermaster for a number of years, and she knew that although mammoth goat hide could be used for making several things, there was really only one common use for an entire sheet of mammoth goat hide canvas recorded as a single inventory item, and that was making tents big enough for the army to use in their outdoor training exercises. With each tent built to shelter four dwarves, and six canvases written off, Brynwolfn finally had an idea of how many warriors she was looking for. If her hunch was right, at some point during those two months of erased history, twenty-four warriors set out with six borrowed tents, but they never returned. 

The fact that the tents must have been borrowed instead of bartered was also telling. The Hulfraust army was tight and efficient with its funds, and it always had plenty available for its needs. That meant that if someone was borrowing expensive equipment like new tents, then they must have been trying to conduct a military operation off the books, without the need to make purchases that would arouse suspicion. Calling in favors, subverting the official chain of command, and then failing to follow through on compensation was the kind of careless, selfish behavior that lived up to the reputation of Keledrain and her spy network. 

Brynwolfn was abruptly pulled out of her own thoughts and back into the present as she slipped on an unusually slick piece of ice, landed hard on her side, and began to slide down a treacherously steep slope. She acted with a speed that would have left an onlooker wondering if she had choreographed the slip intentionally into a kind of brutal dance she had learned by heart. The reality actually wasn’t far off from that. Dealing with slips and tumbling down slopes was one of the most common exercise drills that Brynwolfn practiced along with her Faraluken. “Finding yourself on the ground is inevitable,” she would always tell them, “but finding yourself helpless and vulnerable on the ground is a lack of preparation.” 

Brynwolfn fluidly unclipped her malvapn from her belt and slammed the Thump end down hard on the ice in front of her, creating thick cracks in the ice and propelling her up from the ground and into a crouching position. She then spun around and brought down the Click axe head of the malvapn into the cracked spot of ice, which she had nearly slid away from already. It drove deep into the ice, and Brynwolfn’s firm grip on the handle brought her to an immediate stop. The strain left an ache in her right shoulder, but she had saved herself from the sheer rocky dropoff only a few yards further down the slope. 

She retrieved a metal spike from the side of her pack and used it and her malvapn to carefully make her way back to the top of the slope. Once she was back on stable footing, she stood and brushed the snow, ice, and dirt off her clothes and armor. She didn’t waste time staring down at the ravine or congratulating herself. After all, this was what she trained for. She continued forward, stepping more carefully as the daylight began to dim. 

Brynwolf’s thoughts went back to one of her earliest training exercises during her first year in the Hulfraust army. Her instructor was a gray haired member of the Faraluken named Vistadth, and he pushed Brynwolfn further than she thought possible. One day she had lashed out from exhaustion and demanded to know if he had been trained so hard when he had first started. 

She remembered how Vistadth had grown still and distant at the question, until he finally replied, “Not all of us were lucky enough to have a whole Faraluken to train them. You don’t know how lucky you are that you don’t have to figure this all out on your own.” After that, he had doubled down on the intensity of Brynwolfn’s training, and she hadn’t questioned him again. 

Brynwolfn never did understand what he had meant by his comment, but now decades later, it started to add up. She realized that Vistadth had probably joined the Hulfraust army right around the time that something had happened to the Lost Warriors, and if the Lost Warriors had actually been the Faraluken of that time, their disappearance would have had far more devastating effects than Brynwolfn first suspected. It would have left the entire nation feeling vulnerable and afraid, and it would have robbed the rest of the Hulfraust warriors of their trainers, their role models, their heroes. 

The thought that Keledrain had managed to not only survive such a scandal, but to entirely cover it up with only the commanding weapon ritual as a consequence sent a shiver through Brynwolfn. Her grip on the Hulfraust in those days, and the reach of her secret police, must have been tighter and farther reaching than Brynwolfn had even considered. She realized there may be more dangerous about this mission of hers than just the cold exposure of the quickly approaching night. For the first time, she questioned whether she should simply head back. And then she spotted the ruins. 

Though Brynwolfn had been unsure of what to expect, she had never imagined she would find what appeared to once be a whole town of stone homes and buildings right there on her mountain. There was no record of something like this on any of the Hulfraust maps or charts. At least, there was no record of it in her day. 

As she looked across the scene of collapsed roofs, cracked walls, and fallen doors, everything looked utterly desolate and dead. Except for one small yellow and orange flag that flapped in the wind on the end of a pole. Surely it was a sign that someone must have been here within the last two or three days at the most. 

Brynwolfn tore her eyes away from the flag as she heard the crunching of ice nearby. She turned, and then she and a tall, dark skinned stranger spotted each other at the same time. She made no sudden moves, but kept her right hand close to the belt clip where her malatol hung ready for her to use. The stranger held a small shovel in his hand, and while he seemed surprised to see Brynwolfn, he didn’t seem alarmed or show any sign of a threat. If anything he looked somewhat… embarrassed? 

“Oh, ah, hello,” he said. “Are you an old friend of Mendoji’s too?” 

*** 

Tarun couldn’t help but feel rather awkward as he escorted the woman who had introduced herself as Brynwolfn towards the inner sanctum to meet Mendoji. Every time they exchanged words with each other, he was keenly aware of the shovel in his hand and silently hoped that she would continue to not ask about it. 

He and Mendoji had been there at the monastery for three days and nights before Brynwolfn had arrived, and after all the funeral rights had been completed during the morning of the second day, the stay had actually been quite peaceful and pleasant. They had patched enough of the holes in the walls of the inner sanctum that it stayed relatively warm at night, and they had enough food and supplies to last them at least another four or five days if they felt the need to stay that long. 

Mendoji had spent the majority of his time trying to access rooms and buildings that he hoped would contain records that might provide insights about Shon’s staff. Tarun helped however he could, and when there were no doors to pry open, walls to climb, or roofs to lower himself through, Tarun found that he quite enjoyed the quiet solitude there on the mountain. He could see why the monks had chosen to build their monastery here. 

There was one significant point of inconvenience though. Between the spiritual nature of the place, and the knowledge of how many had died there, Tarun knew the entire monastery grounds were hallowed and special. This meant that any time he felt the need to relieve himself, he wasn’t comfortable doing so until he felt he was sufficiently far away from the borders of the monastery. And he had just finished burying the evidence of his presence with the shovel in his hands before heading back to the monastery and encountering Brynwolfn. He really hoped she wasn’t aware of what the shovel was for. Or if she did, he hoped she would continue to feign ignorance. 

“We’re nearly there,” Tarun said for the third time. “I imagine Mendoji will be glad to meet you. Did you say this was your first time traveling to this monastery?” 

“It is,” Brynwolfn replied. Tarun noticed her accent and figured she wasn’t speaking the language she was most familiar with. Her words were fluid and confident, but every now and then she would pause and tap rhythmically on her weapon, as if it helped her to search for the right word to say. “Though I believe that some others of my people may have traveled this way many many years ago.” 

“I wonder if they might have met anyone that Mendoji knew?” Tarun said brightly. He then added in a more somber tone, “I’m afraid he’s the only monk left now.” 

“Yes, that would seem to be the case,” she said, nodding. “I cannot imagine his home could have fallen into such a state if there were more hands to help with the cleaning.” 

“Oh you can’t blame him for that,” said Tarun. “He actually hasn’t been here for a long time. Would you believe this has been his first time back in more than eighty years?” 

Brynwolfn looked at him with an odd expression that he couldn’t quite read. “You don’t say? That is quite interesting. I look forward to asking him more about it.” 

“I might actually suggest saving questions like that for the morning,” said Tarun. “It’s a sensitive topic for him with many unpleasant memories. It might not be the best conversation immediately before sleep.” 

“Do you mean to say that you are inviting me to sleep here for the night?” Brynwolfn asked. 

“Of course,” Tarun replied. “There is no other suitable shelter from the cold for several miles, and we wouldn’t dream of turning you away.” 

“That is most hospitable of you,” said Brynwolfn. “I gratefully accept.” 

Just then, they arrived at the large door to the inner sanctum. Tarun could tell that Mendoji already had a fire going in the hearth in the middle of the building, because he could see the shafts of light escaping through the remaining cracks in the wall piercing out through the gloom in the growing darkness outside. 

“Would you be willing to wait out here just a moment?” Tarun asked. “We obviously weren’t expecting any company, and I just want to make sure he isn’t in the middle of a meditation or some other ritual. I’ll be right back.” 

*** 

Mendoji had been surprised, yet strangely delighted when Tarun told him about an unexpected visitor he had met at the borders of the monastery. He didn’t realize there were any settlements close enough for anyone to journey to the monastery in a single day. He wondered if they might have a village nearby where he could try some of the regional foods that he had remembered enjoying so much as a boy. 

He stood up from the ground as quickly as his old, stiff joints would allow him, straightened his robe the way he had been taught as a young monk, and walked to the door, opening it wide for their visitor. 

Mendoji had been thinking of something gracious and welcoming to say, but the moment the door opened, all the words fell from his mind like snow knocked loose from a heavy roof. His heart dropped down to his stomach, and he felt dizzy as the entire room around him seemed to tilt and sway. His breath became short and shallow. 

The style of armor, the broad stature, and that damnable weapon on her belt were unmistakable. She was one of them. She belonged to the same group of screaming berzerkers that massacred his monastery.

Waybreaker was underway. Brynwolfn had taken a much more direct role in ordering the commanding weapon for Keledrain than she ever had in years past. Ever since she had accepted her position as the highest ranking general of the Hulfraust army, she had been more than happy to leave the commissioning of the weapon between Keledrain and the leaders of the various artisan guilds. Up until now, Brynwolfn had seen little point in getting involved in a ritual which served the primary purpose of placating the ego of their arrogant “queen,” as well as serving the secondary purpose of giving the Hulfraust artisan guilds something to show off all their latest advancements and techniques on. 

Brynwolfn’s responsibility was very simple. Whatever weapon was ultimately decided, it was her job to train her Faraluken to learn to fight with it. The Faraluken Infantry was the most elite unit in the Hulfraust army and it consisted of the most skilled and experienced fighters in the entire nation. As the highest ranking general, Brynwolfn was the only one with the authority to command them. 

There was no duty she took more seriously than keeping her Faraluken primed and prepared for any battle they may be required to fight. She trained them in the heat of the forge halls and she trained them at the icy heights near the mountain’s peak. Part of the year she trained them to work as a single fighting unit, and part of the year she assigned them to train and fight alongside units of novice soldiers to set an example and show them the Faraluken standard. They were fast, they were efficient, and most importantly, they could all adapt to whatever challenge Brynwolfn threw at them. 

That need for versatility was the first reason Brynwolfn began the annual tradition of training them to use whatever weapon was being designed as that year’s commanding weapon. Keledrain never commissioned the same type of weapon two years in a row, and quite often her demands would vary wildly from one year to the next. This helped ensure her Faraluken never became complacent or bored. Every year was a new opportunity to adapt. 

Another reason she trained them this way was simply her disdain for wasting resources. The guilds responsible for creating the commanding weapon made dozens, sometimes hundreds of iterations before they were satisfied with a final result. That meant a surplus of weapons that were often unfamiliar to the majority of the Hulfraust army. Several of them even had enchantments and other modifications already bonded to them. Brynwolfn decided that it would be a waste to simply send such well-crafted weapons back to the smelters. 

And so every year, Brynwolfn trained her Faraluken with these early drafts of the commanding weapon as they became available. In all honesty, the challenge and novelty of those training sessions was one of the things she looked forward to most every year. But this year would be different. Her Faraluken would need no special training on the weapon being forged this year, because the weapon being fashioned this year was a malvapn. 

Brynwolfn smiled as she thought about her plan, and unconsciously twirled her malatol, the speaking tool that all Hulfraust adults carried with them to converse in their percussive language, and moved it deftly between her fingers. She paused a moment to look at her malatol and admire the simplicity and brilliance of it. More an extension of herself than a simple tool, to Brynwolfn the malatol and malvapn defined the Hulfraust nation more than their physical boundaries or location ever would. She took a moment to strike each part of the malatol against the stone in front of her. 

Thump. Tap. Click. Ping. 

With the right order, rhythm, spacing, and emphasis, those four percussive consonants could say anything worth saying in the Hulfraust language. Together, those four sounds told every story that ever mattered to Brynwolfn and her people. They were simple, yet contained the complexity of everything in existence. 

Thump. That was the blunt end of the malatol. It resembled the head of a hammer, but unlike most hammers its striking surface wasn’t actually flat. Rather, it was comprised of six triangles of equal size that all met together at the center of the surface. The tips of the triangles in the center were slightly more elevated than their edges around the circumference of the striking face, but the slope was so gradual it was easy to mistake for a flat surface without looking close. 

On the malvapn, the thumping side delivered crushing blows that could break apart stone and make most metal armor crumple like parchment. There was a reason that Thump was always listed first among the consonants, because in an argument fought with a malvapn instead of a malatol, there was rarely a need for a second syllable after the first Thump. 

Tap. That was the surface of the malatol furthest away from the handle. Brynwolfn had sometimes heard others refer to it as the “top” of the malatol, but she thought it was limiting to think of the tool in terms of “top and bottom” or “left and right.” That seemed to imply there was some established “right way” to use the malatol, which she believed was a mistake. The tapping surface was shaped like a single tooth on a saw, and it was placed directly between Thump and Click at the heavy end of the tool. 

On the malvapn, the tapping surface was shaped like the tip of a double-edged broadsword, and it provided an upward stabbing and slicing tool that turned the reduced height of the dwarves into an opportunity rather than a disadvantage. 

Click. That surface sat opposite to Thump, on the other side of Tap. This surface was wide, flat, and curved. It also provided the most versatility in terms of regional and family accents within the nation. 

On the malvapn, Click was a great, curved axe head that was used to cleave and chop anything that couldn’t be smashed or sliced out of the way. The ends of the axe blade did not make contact with the handle, and this allowed it to also be used to hook on to targets that needed to be brought down. And this was done for the final syllable to end things with finality. 

Ping. The side furthest away from all the others, on the opposite end of the handle. Its base where it met the handle was round, but it sloped steeply to a point as sharp as a needle. A small spherical weight sat between the base and the handle and served to prevent any accidental slipping of the tool, and to give some extra weight to make sure the higher pitched sound of Ping was not lost among a flurry of other sounds. 

On the malvapn, Ping acted as a spike to finish off any foes brought to the ground with Thump, Tap, or Click. It was sharp, heavy, and was tipped like a spear. While the other three parts of the malvapn were responsible for countless injuries inflicted upon their enemies over the centuries, this end delivered only swift and inescapable death. 

Ping was a sound of finality and completion both on the battlefield with the malvapn and in the peaceful halls of the Hulfraust with the malatol. Nearly every poem, song, and story composed in the Hulfraust language ended with a Ping to let the audience know when it was done. 

Thump, Tap, Click, Ping. Brynwolfn couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that she was neglecting something important in her plans, but couldn’t figure out what that was. She was still missing something, and she worried it could cause the entire plan to fail. The feeling left her on edge. 

Brynwolfn felt the edge of the Click face on her malatol. Then she paused and looked at the tool again. She struck the stone next to her, going through each of the consonants again. 

Thump. She had convinced the Council of Balance Sages to go along with her plan and help organize the the several pieces that needed to simultaneously fall into place. It was only the first blow to Keledrain’s power over the Hulfraust, but an absolutely critical one. 

Tap. Brynwolfn had initiated the construction of Waybreaker, and had personally delivered her instructions to the blacksmiths, mages, and other artisans involved in its creation to ensure it would be made exactly to her specifications. Keledrain had no reason to believe Brynwolfn would ever take such a personal interest in one of her commanding weapons, and Brynwolfn had taken full advantage of the lack of oversight into those details. 

Click. Preparations were underway to make it possible for the entire nation to evacuate their mountain home in a matter of hours, rather than days and weeks. Land around the base of the mountain was being cleared, and portable structures were being constructed that could be set up for sleeping, cooking, and other living essentials. The balance sages were even building pieces that could be assembled into a small, outdoor Temple of Balance, complete with inner and outer halls. Food, clothing, bedding, weapons, medical supplies, and other goods were being stockpiled and organized with the kind of efficiency only possible among the Hulfraust. Life outside their mountain would be strange and scary for many, and very different from the warm, dry, comfortable life they enjoyed within. But Brynwolfn knew that severing their desperate dependence to the mountain would be crucial to severing Keledrain’s power over her people. 

Ping. 

Ping. 

Ping. 

Brynwolfn looked down at her malatol. Spinning the handle between her fingers, the faces of Thump, Tap, and Click created a blur of motion. But little Ping at the far end didn’t seem to move at all. Brynwolfn almost felt as if the tip of the tool was staring at her. 

Her plan lacked a Ping. She realized that even with the success of the first three parts of her plan, without that final stab to Keledrain’s power over them, she would still be a threat. How many cold, rainy days would it take before some of those in the camp started talking about the possibility of returning to the mountain? Even if Keledrain somehow followed through with her threat to kill the heat of the mountain, she could always promise to bring it back for those who returned and pledged their loyalty to her. 

Brynwolfn already knew how that would play out because she had heard the stories from her grandmother. There would be a mad scramble for power, with dwarves practically climbing over each other to prove themselves more loyal than others. The network of spies and secret police that Keledrain had once kept such a tight grip over would surge in power and paranoia just like in the first three dozen years after she came to power. Records would be erased, friendships and trust would be shattered, and dissenters would be culled. And all of Keledrain’s power over them that she had let slip through generations of neglect would come back greater and more terrible than ever. 

And in a rush of dread insight, Brynwolfn knew with a surety that that’s exactly what would happen if she failed to find the Ping in her plan before all the other aspects of the plan came to fruition. And that meant she had only a week or two at the most. So she stood up from her seat, put her malatol in her pocket, picked up her malvapn, and got to work. 

*** 

When facing an enemy on the battlefield that was hard to Ping down, Brynwolfn had been taught to first look at any attacks that went before to see where they may have failed, and what weaknesses or cracks in the enemy’s defenses those earlier attacks may have left behind. She knew that the Commanding Weapon ritual had been an intentional blow to Keledrain’s power, but one that only managed to injure her hold on them, but failed to end it. 

She had never asked others about the details leading up to that event because she worried that if Keledrain heard even rumors that Brynwolfn was curious about it, she may begin to question Brynwolfn’s loyalty to her, which would greatly reduce how effectively she could serve her people. With time now so short, Brynwolfn decided it was finally worth the risk. 

Brynwolfn spent hours in the Temple of Balance talking secretly with Brekoth, asking the elderly balance sage everything she knew about the events leading up to Keledrain conceding to the Council of Balances Sages and agreeing to the commanding weapon ritual. The first thing Brynwolfn learned was that she had assumed correctly that it was a victory hard-fought, and Keledrain had been reluctant to agree, but in the end she had made some blunder that even she knew she would have to answer for unless she gave at least some evidence of penance. 

“I can’t say for certain what it was,” said Brekoth. “I had only just become a young woman when those events took place, and it would be many years before I earned my place on the Council. Those with firsthand knowledge of the situation refused to discuss it, and everyone was afraid of asking too many questions and attracting the attention of Keledrain’s secret police. But sometimes silence can tell you more than a confession.” 

“What do you mean?” Brynwolfn asked. 

“I remember that for almost a year before Keledrain agreed to the ceremony, everyone was talking about the Lost Warriors,” said Brekoth, tapping out the last two words so quietly that Brynwolfn wasn’t sure if she heard them correctly. 

“Who were the Lost Wa-” Brynwolfn was shocked when Brekoth put out her hand to silence her malatol. Brekoth’s wrinkled hands were soft, but Brynwolfn’s heart pounded with outrage. Even a parent silencing their own child’s malatol would be scolded for poor parenting if witnessed in a public place. Brynwolfn would have been less surprised if the kindly old woman had slapped her across the face. But when she looked into Brekoth’s usually gentle eyes, her expression was grave. 

“There are some things that are unwise to speak too loudly,” Brekoth said, not looking away, “even here in the temple.” She then lifted her hand from Brynwolfn’s malatol and added, “I’m sorry for the disrespect. It was done out of a protective instinct. One that you are too young to understand I’m afraid.” 

Brynwolfn paused a moment to steady her breathing and calm her wounded pride before continuing. She reminded herself that if Brekoth really respected her so little, they wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place, and she decided to trust her old role model, rather than press the matter further. “Is there anything you can tell me about them?” Brynwolfn asked. 

“Not much,” said Brekoth. “Very little detail was said about them, even in those days. What I can tell you is that after the first commanding weapon ritual was over, I never heard anyone mention those Warriors again. It was as if a lever had been pulled, and overnight everyone’s malatols forgot how to say those words. I still have nightmares from time to time of the fear I felt from that eerie sudden silence.” She punctuated the last word with an emphatic Ping. 

Brekoth put down her malatol and flexed her fingers, making several popping noises in the process. “I’m afraid that’s where we’ll have to end for today,” she said with an especially shaky, weary grip on her malatol. “I don’t have as much endurance as I did when I was younger. Not as much bravery either, I think.” She smiled then, and the number of wrinkles that crinkled around her eyes seemed more numerous than Brynwolfn had thought physically possible. “I’m glad to see we managed to pass that fire along to your generation,” she added. “The Hulfraust chose well when they picked you.” 

Brynwolfn helped Brekoth stand, then the two exited the temple, though they were careful to not be seen exiting at the same time. Brynwolfn wandered aimlessly through the crowded and busy halls of the mountain for several hours, alone with her thoughts. Eventually she came to a door to a balcony on the outside of the mountain, and she stepped through. The sting of the cold air on her face brought her thoughts into sharp focus, and at once she again became aware of her need of haste. 

Her conversation with Brekoth had not given her everything she needed, but she could feel that there was a heavy wisdom in what the venerable sage had shared with her. It also left her with an itch in the back of her mind, as if there was a thought or memory that was just waiting just below the surface, and she was getting closer. She knew she needed to scratch that itch. 

She needed to find out what had become of the Lost Warriors.

Tarun held his fur cape tight around himself to keep it from flapping in the wind as he continued to explore the frozen grounds of the monastery. The cold air was dry and made his cheeks sting, his lips chap, and his eyes water, but Tarun still preferred to walk through the harsh outdoors rather than wait inside any longer. The room where Mendoji still continued his vigilant chanting and meditation felt both too empty and too crowded at the same time. 

The night before, Tarun and Mendoji had managed to find a room with enough of its walls and ceiling intact to provide shelter from the wind, and hold on to most of the heat from the fire they had built. After the exhaustion of the climb and the welcome respite from the cold, Tarun had been ready to fall asleep as soon as he had scooted himself into the warm sleeping bag that Grodin had given him so many months earlier. Before sleep could take him though, Mendoji had asked Tarun if he would help him the next day to gather the remains of his brothers and sisters so he could give them a proper funeral and invite their souls to be adopted into Seth’s clan. Tarun had sleepily agreed that of course he would help. 

Tarun wasn’t sure what he had expected when he had agreed to help, but he definitely hadn’t been prepared for the experience. Perhaps he had thought they might be finding a few bones scattered around the cobblestones between buildings. After all, the attack that had killed all of Mendoji’s fellow monks had occurred nearly eight decades before. 

What Tarun hadn’t realized was that the cold, dry, thin air so high on the mountain had robbed the bodies of their moisture, but beyond that it had preserved them. Carrying dozens of mummified bodies into the central hall of the monastery had been an unsettling task for Tarun, and he had no desire to stay in the same room with all of them once he and Mendoji had finished, and Mendoji began the deep, resonant humming that always acted as a prelude to the minotaur’s meditations. 

Though he had tried to think about them as little as possible while he performed the task, now that his part was finished, Tarun found himself thinking more about the monks he had carried, and everything they had taught him about the monastery that Mendoji had never mentioned. For one thing, there hadn’t been any children among them, only adults. For another, Tarun couldn’t recall carrying a single body that looked human, or like any primafolk for that matter. Some had horns and fur and hooves like Mendoji, while others had scales or feathers, talons or tails, and many other features that Tarun didn’t recognize. Some had faces that resembled primafolk, like the satyr brothers in Aluanna’s band, while many others had beaks, muzzles, tusks, and other facial features that looked nothing like anyone Tarun had ever spoken to. Not that he could remember anyway. 

Yet there was no denying that the bodies Tarun had carried had all belonged to intelligent people, not animals or monsters. They all wore the same orange and yellow robes, though worn in different ways according to their bodies and needs. Some had died still holding paint brushes, flutes, chalk, or other instruments for creating and sharing art. They had been people who had clearly found joy in life and had not expected that joy to be so suddenly and unfairly cut short. 

As the weight of these thoughts settled on Tarun, he sank to his knees and began to weep. He shut his eyes tight and held his cape closed around him with a desperate grip, as if letting go would expose him not only to the cold, but to all the indifferent cruelty of the world. He rocked himself back and forth on the ground as his shoulders shook with his sobs, wishing he could unsee everything he had seen that day. And on the edge of his consciousness, with his eyes closed, Tarun thought he saw a white light come into his view, and he remembered something. 

Tarun remembered the white light that had appeared in his mind the night that Shon had woken him up in the healer’s hut at Life’s Edge. Shon had told Tarun about the light several times in the weeks that followed, but Tarun had never remembered it himself. Now he remembered. He remembered how it had painted over all of Tarun’s painful memories, leaving his mind a blank canvas, remembering nothing of his life before that moment. He knew it would do the same thing again if he allowed it. 

“No,” Tarun said aloud. His sobbing had stopped, though his eyes were still shut and his shoulders still shook. The memories he had, the things he had learned, and the connections he had made were all too important to be whitewashed away. “I’m keeping it,” he said, and the white edges of his vision halted. Then, through the shrill wind overhead, Tarun heard Mendoji’s deep voice echo across the mountainsides. Instead of hearing only humming or chanting, Tarun heard Mendoji’s words, and although he couldn’t understand them, he could feel them. 

Tarun realized that Mendoji was saying their names, one by one. These people Tarun had carried weren’t simply mummified victims of some great tragedy of the past. Tarun had helped Mendoji gather together his brother and sisters, his friends. He knew each of them by name, and now as he called them by name, he was inviting them home. And as Tarun heard each name echo in his ears, the haunting and desiccated faces in his mind were replaced with a vision of those same faces as Mendoji had known them in life. Each face seemed at peace, and each one seemed to smile in a way that told Tarun they were grateful to him for helping to carry them those last few steps they couldn’t walk on their own. 

“I’m keeping all of it,” Tarun said to himself. “My memories, my pain, all of it.” The white borders on the edge of his vision burned away, replaced by a white flame that illuminated and brightened the images in his mind, rather than hiding them. Tarun stood up from the ground, no longer shaking. “Some things are worth the pain,” he continued, wiping his eyes, then squinting as he opened them to the bright snow-covered surroundings. 

With his vision still blurry with tears and blinded by sunlight reflecting off every surface, Tarun hadn’t even noticed the strange woman perched on a rooftop across the courtyard until she spoke. “What exactly are you keeping?” she asked in a rich sonorous voice that seemed to cut through the wind, “And what is this pain that you believe it is worth?” 

Tarun quickly blinked away the rest of his tears to get a better look at this stranger who seemed to come out of nowhere. He knew he had been preoccupied, but he found it hard to believe he could have missed the sounds of footsteps crunching through the icy snow covering every surface. Once Tarun’s eyes focused on the woman who spoke to him, he realized why he hadn’t heard her coming. 

The woman had a face that resembled a human or elf, but the rest of her body was covered with dazzling iridescent feathers. Instead of feet she had talons like a bird of prey, and instead of arms she had two enormous wings, which she let hang down from her sides. Even from the roof edge where she sat, the long feathers at the tips of her wings nearly reached the cold ground below. Tarun found himself both drawn forward by her beauty, and yet held back by a sense of danger. She reminded Tarun of the way he felt watching Aluanna weave a musical enchantment with her band. 

The silence between them hung in the air a moment longer, then Tarun called out to her. “Who are you?” he asked. 

The woman lept impossibly high in the air, made three great flaps of her wings, causing a small whirlwind of snow on the ground below, then silently glided until she landed on what remained of a ruined balcony right above Tarun. “Bold of you to ask me a question when you have not yet answered mine,” she said. Her voice now seemed to vibrate through Tarun’s center, and the colors of her feathers had an almost hypnotic effect so close up. “Still, your question is simple enough, so I will answer first. I am Quecholli, and like you, I am a trespasser here.” 

Tarun shook his head and took a step back to prevent falling over from the dizzying sensation of looking too closely at her feathers. “I’m not a trespasser,” said Tarun. Though he had said the words confidently, his voice sounded so hollow and small compared to Quecholli’s. 

“This is a place where only ghosts and memories belong,” said Quecholli. “If you’re not a trespasser, does that make you a ghost, or a memory?” 

Tarun was about to reply when Quecholli suddenly cocked her head to one side, the motion had the effect of immediately making her seem both less imposing and more puzzling to him. “Then again,” she said more quietly, almost to herself, “if you are a ghost, that may explain why I can’t see you.” She then leaned forward, bringing her face much closer to where Tarun stood. 

For the first time, Tarun noticed that Quecholli’s eyes were completely black, yet had a sheen that seemed to reflect even more colors than her feathers possessed. Tarun also leaned forward and turned his head to the side, yet the stranger gave no reaction to his movement. Tarun realized that she was looking in his direction, but she wasn’t actually looking at him. “You really can’t see me?” Tarun asked. “Are you blind then?” 

Quecholli raised herself back up, straightened her posture, and her feathers seemed to spread apart in a way that made her appear even more dangerous than before. “Those are the second and third questions you have now asked me without answering even one of mine,” she said. She was not shouting, but it seemed to Tarun that he heard echos of dragons roaring and hawks screeching behind her voice. “I will not tolerate a fourth.” Then speaking again, her voice turned gradually quieter. “Yet once more I will answer, if only because the tragic irony of your questions cannot go ignored.” Both her posture and wings seemed to droop at the statement. 

“I am the least blind creature on this dark and lonely world,” she whispered. “I thought if I could see far enough, I could guide my sisters and brothers through any danger that may hide along our path.” Her voice then began to swell in volume and fullness, until it filled the courtyard as if by a choir. “But in my vanity, I was instead cursed to see ALL. Past, present, and future are now always before my eyes, and I cannot look away. And when I saw that peril which no guide could avoid, I could do nothing but play my part in their destruction. So I left. I am all that remains of those who ever called this place home, and even I am a trespasser here now.” 

“You’re…” In his surprise, Tarun barely caught himself from asking another question. Instead, he considered his words, took a deep breath, and then spoke in a voice as clear as he could manage. 

“I’m sorry for your pain,” Tarun said. “If you knew the people who lived here and saw the tragedy that followed that must have been more horrible than anything I have ever endured.” 

“More than you can possibly imagine,” Quecholli replied. 

“I’m sure you’re right,” Tarun continued, “but I can imagine at least a small part of it. That’s the pain I said was worth keeping. The pain of making room for all those people in my soul, even though they’re already gone. It hurts, but it’s worth the hurt because of what I gain by letting them in. And I couldn’t gain that if I didn’t care.” 

“You know nothing,” Quecholli said, her gaze now growing cold. “You speak like a child.” 

“That’s probably true too,” replied Tarun. “I have so few memories, my friend Shon says that my mind is younger than most children.” Quecholli scoffed and turned as if to fly away, so Tarun quickly added, “But I’m no trespasser! And I’m no ghost either. My companion used to belong to this monastery, and I came here with his permission.” 

Quecholli whipped her head back to where Tarun stood and her face showed a mix of fury and disgust that was terrible to behold. She opened her mouth and let out a horrifying shriek. “Then either you are a liar or your companion is,” she screamed. “And while I may have ignored a trespasser, I do not suffer liars to live.” 

“It’s not a lie!” Tarun shouted. “I came here with Mendoji.” 

Quecholli’s wings were outstretched as if to take flight and start her assault on Tarun, but it seemed her every muscle froze the instant that he said Mendoji’s name. Then she bristled, raised her wings high above her head, and spoke in a voice deep with pain. “Now I know you are a liar,” she said. Her face contorted into an expression of hurt and betrayal as if Tarun had lifted her out of a pit and then slapped her back down again just for sport. “Mendoji is no more. He fell even further than I did and became Vdekshi, just as I foresaw nearly a century ago. He festers in his fortress to the west, growing in both power and bondage until he is ready to play his part as the tool of destruction that destiny has forced him to play.” 

“I may not be able to see you,” she said coldly, “but I will make sure to hear every painful cry you offer as I kill you slowly as penance for speaking the name of my dearest fallen student.” 

“He’s not Vdekshi anymore,” Tarun said, afraid of what she would do, but standing firm. “You’re right, he did fall. But he’s been healed. My friends and I helped him, and in the process my best friend was badly hurt, and now something is happening to him we don’t understand. We came here to find information that might give us some answers.” 

Quecholli cocked her head to the side, and again Tarun felt an immediate change in her presence. She seemed hesitant and unsure now. Vulnerable even. Tarun wanted to show her he meant no harm, and had no desire to take advantage of her vulnerability. 

“If you can see everything, maybe you can help us,” Tarun said, but regretted it when he saw the look of anger flash across her face. “If you don’t believe me, then use your sight to look at the fortress where Vdekshi was. Can’t you see he’s not there anymore? He’s in that center building right over there, chanting over your slain brothers and sisters, giving their souls a chance to rest at peace.” 

Quecholli’s eyes narrowed in disbelief, but then she turned her head to the west, presumably in the direction of the Homestead. Her face went slack. “I… I can’t see the fortress,” she whispered, almost unable to say the words. “Just like I can’t see you. Everything is hidden as if by an impenetrable gray fog. How can that be? Is destiny itself broken?” 

“Maybe there’s just more to destiny than what your curse lets you see,” said Tarun. “Honestly, I don’t know. As you said, I’m a child and I don’t know anything about destiny. But I know Mendoji is a lot wiser than I am. Won’t you let me take you to him? You can talk to him yourself and see that it’s really him. Maybe together we can figure this all out.” 

For the first time, a tear fell from Quecholli’s eyes, and Tarun noticed that the tear was the same color of iridescent black as her eyes. “If what you say is true, I could not bear for my sweet Mendoji to see me like this,” she said. “And if what you say is a lie, I could not bear the pain of such a cruel trick.” She wiped the tear from her face, then looked with determination towards the west. “I will go to the fortress and learn for myself what the truth is. It will be good to learn something new again.” 

She turned one last time towards the spot where Tarun stood. “If Mendoji really is inside, please don’t tell him more than you need. I would hate for him to know how ugly I’ve become.” She then lifted her wings and soared away before Tarun could say another word.