EóGAN III

  Shortly after Esker departed, following the tunnel on the other side of the lifestream that Rhyolite had emerged from, Eógan learned his first Tengu word. The old priest demanded something of Liadan and him and grew taciturn when they did not understand. After a flurry of rumbling phrases and wild gesticulations, Rhyolite approached Guillaume’s body and dragged it towards the lifestream. Liadan became distraught and threw herself on top of the Jotling’s corpse, pleading that Eógan help her protect him.

  Rhyolite huffed and seemed to read enough of the situation to know that he must change tact. He commanded something in Tengu, repeating the phrase a bit more gently while he moved to the edge of the fast flowing water. He dredged his large hands through the stream and patted his forearms dry. Cupping the water in both hands, he said, “Mizu.” As rivulets ran between his fingers, Rhyolite took two long strides over to Guillaume and delicately poured a trickle of water on his forehead, washing away smears of blood and grime. “Mizu,” the priest repeated, pointing at the lifestream and back at the dead Jotling. He pantomimed bathing to reiterate his request.

  “He wants to wash the body, Lia,” Eógan said in a soft voice, placing a hand on her shoulder. Gradually Liadan disentangled herself from Guillaume’s corpse. Her behavior of late was beginning to concern him. He felt the pangs of loss for the Jotling more than he cared to admit, but it seemed as if Liadan’s very view of the world had been shattered. She was sullen and her abilities had seemingly become impotent as a response to this state. Eógan did not know how to help her and was worried what she was experiencing would leave lasting scars on her psyche. “I will take care to wash Guillaume,” he offered. “We will give him a proper service at the temple.”

  Liadan looked at him, her eyes flashed with an unfamiliar intensity. There was a greedy hunger within them. She regained her composure, “I am sorry that I have not been myself. I only want to do what is right for him, what he deserves from us.”

  As Eógan was stripping Guillaume’s tattered clothing off of him, some of it was stuck to his body due to the congealed blood. The pseudoscorpion ambled up, its mouthparts twitching. “Not for you,” he scolded and shooed the insect away. Rhyolite waited chest deep in the lifestream while Eógan carefully cut away the stained shoulder area of Guillaume’s shirt. Liadan sat with her bare legs dangling in the cold water, she avoided looking at the Jotling when he was fully disrobed. Eógan shook his head at her prudishness, there was no shame in nudity, it was how we were all born.

  As he carried Guillaume’s corpse to the water, it was impossible not to notice how it had stiffened, the stench of decay was accelerating. Rhyolite took the body delicately in both arms and submerged it fully. As the current cleansed him, the Jotling looked peaceful, as if he was only sleeping. Liadan began to sob.

  ———

  The second Tengu word that Eógan learned was “again”, it was pronounced mata in their baritone tongue. He learned it through repetition. Repetition in practice, repetition in failure, and repetition in punishment. In stark contrast, Liadan was thriving in her lessons. Her Tengu calligraphy earned praise from Rhyolite and she easily flowed through the sequence of martial poses, or katas, that the old priest had demonstrated. Eógan was finding that he did not particularly enjoy following instructions. In his mind, there were many ways to accomplish a task; Rhyolite fundamentally disagreed.

  “Baka,” Rhyolite barked as he casually dodged Eógan’s off-balance attack, tripped him with a sandaled foot, and sent him sprawling onto the rough stone floor of the temple courtyard.

  Eógan was not sure he wanted to know the exact translation of that insult. He was equally tired of the stinging slaps he received when he did not meet Rhyolite’s expectations.

  “Mata,” Rhyolite insisted, lowering his stance and beckoning with a large hand.

  “Yeah, yeah… mata, mata, mata!” Eógan groused. This time, he would do it his way. He shuffled forward in an awkward Tengu fighting style and feigned an overextended punch. When Rhyolite sneered and whipped his hand out to cuff him, Eógan dropped into a roll, allowing his momentum to carry him forward, through the Tengu’s bandy legs. As the priest whirled to track him, Eógan snapped both legs to the ground. With a powerful push, aided by the twin deer spirits on his shins, he shot backwards, slamming the top of his head into Rhyolite’s solar plexus.

  The resounding, “Oof!” as all the air was driven from the old priest’s lungs was music to Eógan’s ears. The much larger Tengu crumpled around him. Rhyolite’s face hung in front of him upside down with his eyes closed. The priest’s long nose rested on the mound of his own stomach.

  “‘Mata’ enough for you?” Eógan taunted.

  After a slow rattling inhale, the Tengu priest roared with laughter. He unfurled from around Eógan and sprang to his feet. His large eyes crinkled with joy and his mouth opened, barring pointed teeth. “Mata,” he insisted, pounding the rocky ground with a bare foot. “Mata!” The priest gestured to Ronan’s spear: the tip of it had been wrapped with a sturdy cover of mushroom leather, making it safe for sparring.

  “Are you sure, old man?” Eógan twirled the spear to limber his muscles. “You might end up looking like that cave fish.” Rhyolite may not have understood his words, but he picked up on the tone. The Tengu priest jutted out his chin and flicked his hand through the long, scraggily chin hair of his white beard. His stance was wide, which gave Eógan an idea, perhaps speed could be an advantage. He darted to Rhyolite’s right and as the Tengu turned, Eógan launched himself off of his planted foot with a powerful burst from the deer spirit. That maneuver abruptly changed his approach, he flew towards his opponent’s left side. Whether it was age or Eógan’s deceptive tactics, the Tengu priest was unable to match his adjustment.

  Once his left foot touched the stony ground, Eógan braced, redirecting his momentum and swinging the staff of his spear towards the exposed ribs of the priest. That was when everything went wrong. The ground beneath his foot shot up in a pillar of stone, flipping him backwards. As Eógan twisted in the air to get his feet back under him, another pillar protruded out, careening towards his head. He threw the spear to free his hands, hearing Ronan’s mocking curses fade into the distance, and grasped the rim of the smooth stone column with his finger tips. His elbows locked and he suspended himself upside down.

  The ascent of the pillar accelerated towards the roof of the cavern, where stalactites loomed above. Eógan was not keen on being skewered, so he rotated his hips and snapped his legs in a twisting motion. He let that torque carry him forward and was grateful for the smooth texture of the pillar as he wrapped his legs around it to slide down. “Blasted devils,” Eógan cursed as a forest of pillars rose up to meet him. After launching himself into the air, he danced, skipping from rising pillar to rising pillar. He stopped thinking and relied purely on instinct, trusting his body to steer him true.

  Far below, Rhyolite squatted in meditative concentration, his eyes tightly shut. Eógan focused on making incremental progress down towards the floor, twisting and adjusting to unexpected bursts of stone. The moment his mind detected a pattern, the onslaught of pillars would change, branching into complex geometric shapes. Eógan smiled, they began to look like the boughs of trees; an environment that Rhyolite may be unfamiliar with, but he was well at home in. He swung and dropped with abandon. Running down nearly sheer slopes, springing off of one pillar to ricochet off the next, and returning to the first. Sweat trickled down Rhyolite’s brow; Eógan felt the tide turn in his favor. He smiled a feral grin as the pads of his feet flew and he was finally close enough to attack.

  With a bestial roar, Eógan plunged toward the distracted Tengu priest, his feet ready to connect in a powerful kick. In a blur, Rhyolite rose, his eyes snapped open and were full of amusement. With one hand, the Tengu caught both of Eógan’s feet and swung him about like a child. The air whipped past his ears and the priest was gradually swinging his head closer and closer to the stony ground. “Mata?” Rhyolite taunted.

  Eógan gritted his teeth in frustration, his arms were too short to reach anything except for the Tengu’s vice-like fingers. He battered at them ineffectually with balled fists and was ready to surrender. That was when he noticed the pseudoscorpion creeping up behind the Tengu’s ropey red legs. “Mata,” Eógan agreed. Before Rhyolite could react, a pincer closed around his calf. With a bellow of pain, the priest loosened his grip and tried to dislodge the pseudoscorpion’s claw. Eógan slipped from the Tengu’s large hand and rolled to his feet.

  “Now, do it. Take off the cover,” Ronan’s spear insisted, conveniently within reach. Eógan grabbed the weapon and brandished it towards the priest’s neck. Rhyolite held the writhing pseudoscorpion in one hand by the carapace, his other hand was low, as if he was pleading for mercy.

  “Mata?” Eógan asked with finality.

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  The priest laughed and gestured with his eyes. Eógan’s tender bits were surrounded by a bramble of jagged stone spikes. His eyes widened.

  “Are you boys done with your horseplay?” Liadan demanded, her severity was incongruous with their buffoonery.

  Eógan joined the priest in wild laughter.

  LIADAN IV

  Life at the temple under Rhyolite’s tutelage shared parallels with the time Liadan had spent at the abbey. The return to routine was a welcome comfort. She missed the structure and the sense of purpose that monastic life had granted: the elevation she had received due to her gifts had been intoxicating. These days, she felt lost in a gloomy forest that was devoid of signs of life, a maze of tree trunks under a dark canopy. She wondered how Lady Galdr was faring, thinking of the witch brought a faint smile to her face.

  Liadan was grateful for the ceremony to inter Guillaume’s body. Rhyolite had entombed her fallen friend with much of the same honor as the ancient Tengu geomancers. She and Eógan had been tasked with mining coarse salt to preserve the body: tradition required that the closest of kin perform that duty. Seeing Guillaume laid to rest and encased in a delicate layer of stone had brought closure to her. She still struggled with immense guilt, but the festering wound of despair was beginning to heal. Even Eógan had been on his best behavior, treating the funereal with proper solemnity. Liadan was surprised to catch the Pecht surreptitiously wiping away a few tears when he thought that she was not looking. Rhyolite had delivered Tengu last rites; she was only able to understand a few words.

  Unlike Eógan, Liadan showed an aptitude for learning the alien language of Esker’s people. Perhaps learning the basics of Pechtish at a young age, followed later by Gaulish, had impressed upon her mind the faculties necessary to learn foreign tongues. Tengu was utterly indecipherable at first, however, the consistency of the syllables and the regularity of the grammar made far more sense to Liadan than Gaulish ever had.

  She loved the calligraphy lessons, they filled her with a joy similar to her first encounter with the illuminated manuscripts in the scriptorium of the abbey. She yearned to learn such an awe inspiring art, relishing every smooth brushstroke of sooty ink across the paper-thin stone tiles that Rhyolite had prepared for them.

  Eógan balked at the rigidity of their routine. Rhyolite would swat at him with a huge hand whenever the Pecht failed to follow the proper brushstroke order, or added an individual flourish, instead of faithfully replicating the Tengu character they were practicing.

  Days passed and while Liadan could not speak fluent Tengu, her vocabulary was expanding. Her respect for the precise combinations of symbols in their alphabets grew with familiarity. Eógan garbled the tongue nearly as much as he did with Gaídel: Liadan well understood Rhyolite’s frayed patience. She was glad to see the two of them bond through martial training, despite the stern disapproval she projected. Their latest bout had nearly upended the entire courtyard, which would greatly increase the intensity of their chores.

  “You will bring the temple down upon us,” Liadan chided her friend, repeating the Tengu word for temple so that Rhyolite would understand her concern.

  After the two combatants’ laughter died down, Rhyolite slapped Eógan on the back with a staggering blow and sauntered over to Liadan. She bowed her head in deference as he approached; Eógan snorted in the distance. “Your turn,” Rhyolite commanded. His stern demeanor was undermined by the care he put into each lesson: he wanted them to succeed. He flowed into a loose stance, equally suited for offense or defense.

  Liadan’s biggest surprise in her life at the temple was how taken she was with Tengu fighting techniques. “Osu,” she replied in respect and set her feet, allowing her muscles to limber. The training was unlike anything else she had experienced in her life: she especially enjoyed the sense of control the katas taught her and the deepening connection she felt with her body.

  Rhyolite snapped out a flurry of blows, causing Liadan to retreat as she struggled to fend them off. She knew that the priest was restraining his true prowess, which stung her pride. She wanted to be able to fight confidently like Eógan and Esker, to be able to defend her friends when they were in need. As the barrage of casual attacks ebbed, Liadan countered with a combo of kicks and chops. Rhyolite grunted with approval, yet was able to defect them with a single arm. She did not overextend herself and maintained the proper balance to put weight behind her blows. Each impact was jarring and painful, her body had not yet built up the physical tolerance for such abuse.

  With a sweep of his long legs, the Tengu priest tried to knock Liadan to the ground. She hopped over the tripping attack and kicked his passing shin, which caused him to lean in order to recover. Immediately, she targeted exposed pressure points along the priest’s right side, probing for vulnerable joints and internal organs. She was rewarded with several sharp exhalations of pain. Before she could slip away, Rhyolite was upon her. His large hand caught her wrist on its return from a strike. He pivoted, trapping her arm around his upper bicep, and easily reversed her momentum. She flew helplessly over his shoulder, unable to break the grapple without risking severe trauma to her arm. The air was driven out of her lungs as she impacted the ground. She was grateful for the woven mushroom fiber mats that they sparred upon. Eógan had graduated to fighting upon the stoney floor outside the temple: Liadan was happy that her lessons had not become so advanced.

  “Tatte!” Rhyolite commanded her to stand.

  Liadan obliged, rising in a way that shielded her from vulnerable attacks. An ember smoldered within her as she regained her stance: a conviction that had been lost with her failure to protect Guillaume. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, she felt the flame of piety reignite. It was not enough to want to protect those she cared about, she needed to stop those who would inflict evil upon the world. Rhyolite became an unfortunate stand-in for the sense of injustice flaring through Liadan’s veins.

  As her limbs swung towards her sensei, golden filigree trailed in the air. When her blows collided with her teacher’s forearm or leg, brilliant phosphorescent light flashed as small barriers amplified her strikes. Blinded by the brightness, Rhyolite struggled to defend himself, sweeping his blocks in circular motions. Each time a barrier connected with his flesh, he was rebuffed violently, which left significant gaps in his defenses. Liadan brought both palms together, grew a glowing divine shield at their center, and thrust them into the Tengu’s chest. He went flying backwards, tumbling into a heap of long red limbs. His robes smoked and were lightly singed.

  “Holy shit!” Eógan exclaimed, beaming with satisfaction on the side of the chamber. “That was bloody brilliant!”

  Liadan flushed at the compliment, thrilled of her accomplishment. Her heart dropped and she abruptly paled, what if she had critically injured Rhyolite? She ran towards the priest, dreading what state she would find him in. As her feet pattered in approach, Rhyolite twitched and flailed about in alarm: he was dazed. Liadan dropped her arms and bowed to her teacher, apologizing over and over.

  The Tengu priest erupted into laughter, then groaned in pain as he clutched his chest. Chuckling as he winced, Rhyolite labored to sit up, his back slumped against a wall.

  Liadan was desperate to check his injuries and batted away his protesting hand as she approached. She was unsure if her healing gift would work and fueled her confidence with the rekindled flame of her faith. “Please wait,” she requested in Tengu, not knowing the words to ask him to stay still.

  Rhyolite grunted in reply, then coughed wetly. By his demeanor, Liadan suspected that he was hiding grave injuries.

  “Stop acting like a stubborn cat,” she babbled to herself in Gaídel. “Let me take a closer look.” She reached out, probing gently with her finger tips around the scorched area of impact on the priest’s chest. He flinched at her touch.

  “Did you kill him?” Eógan called out from across the room.

  Liadan shot him a dark look.

  “Let me know if he needs a mercy blow,” the Pecht continued, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “Baka,” Rhyolite wheezed, correctly surmising Eógan’s tone.

  “Baka,” Liadan agreed. She pressed her palm more firmly against the Tengu’s chest, they both exhaled sharply. There was severe internal damage. Rhyolite wiped at the corner of his mouth weakly and stared at the frothy purple blood smeared on his hand. Liadan’s questing sense was imperfect, more conceptual than specific. What she felt was the cascading results of catastrophic injury: Rhyolite’s entire system was threatening to shut down. They both began to panic. Liadan understood little of the inner workings of any body, let alone that of a Tengu. She felt like a blind person being ordered to paint a landscape that they could not see.

  Rhyolite gripped her wrist firmly, speaking only with his eyes. He smiled at her, pride was written across his features. Liadan would not fail her teacher, she could not afford to fail again.

  This time, when she quested within through her touch, she contacted his skin directly. She no longer searched for what was wrong, she demanded that his body be made right. The stirring sensation that began deep within Rhyolite’s internal workings was startling. Liadan nurtured that spark of life, coaxing rapid recovery. She felt the rib that punctured his lung retract and reset. The uninterrupted flow of air returning with a careful inhale. The reshaping of muscle and skin where her palms had grievously wounded him. She was drained by this feat, yet unlike past efforts to help others, this miracle was not solely powered from within: she had drawn upon Rhyolite’s essence, sharing the burden. Perhaps she drew too deeply from his reserves, the old priest went limp. Liadan cradled his head to prevent it from knocking against the stone wall and with great effort, lay him flat.

  “So, he is dead?” Eógan teased, crouching down to poke at the senseless Tengu. The pseudoscorpion followed at his heels, making a clacking sound as its pincers snipped the air.

  Liadan ignored the childish remark. She lay a hand on Rhyolite’s forearm, checking how he fared. She was relieved by his even breathing. “Why must you be such a pest?” she demanded, whirling upon Eógan.

  “You hear that Skellum, she called you a pest!” Apparently the pseudoscorpion had been named. It thrashed its antennae indignantly.

  Liadan tried to stifle her laughter, but she needed the release and was grateful for it.

  ———

  Much to Liadan’s relief, Rhyolite’s recovery was rapid. Life in the temple returned to a comfortable rhythm. There was a brief hiatus in martial training as the priest recovered. Lessons in Tengu continued and Liadan cherished those days. The most significant challenge she faced was learning to fully control her abilities: both when used offensively and defensively. She even had the opportunity to spar with Eógan. He outclassed her as a fighter and was frustratingly quick, yet the few times she managed to land solid blows upon the cheeky Pecht were immensely satisfying. One sent him tumbling so many times that he was dizzy when he arose. Liadan felt a bliss that had been missing from her life for a long time. More than a sense of peace was lost when the temple was attacked.