14

A headache. A bad taste in his mouth. An ache in his bones. A cell.

Those were the forester’s first thoughts on waking. They were not bad thoughts as they were truthful, “all truthful thoughts have some use in them”. The gardener, Nasim, once told him that, a long time ago in another life. Strange that memories of that man should wake with him, and have been with him so much recently. He had not thought of him, sitting in his growing room at the monastery of Zorir, forbidden books wrapped lovingly and hidden in the earth, for many years.

The cell was one of four in a dank cellar, separated by bars made of woven and hardened vines. No privacy for the occupants – though he was the only person in there. The place smelled bad, but that had been a feature of every prison he had ever been in, and his temper, the anger within that he had held onto so tightly as a younger man, had landed him in plenty.

“Awake then?”

His jailer stood at the bars watching him as she ate some sort of porridge. The hand she held the bowl in was carved from wood as smooth and shiny as her own skin was pitted and flaky. No doubt the skin condition was the legacy of some battle, for she had the look of an old soldier about her: hair short to her skull, though flakes of skin managed to stick in it. He had seen skin like that on the survivors of a cowl fire. The effects of it lasting far past the initial pain, desiccating skin the way a cowl eroded the spirit of the user that fed it.

“Yes. I am awake,” he said, champing his mouth to try and lose the awful taste within. “What am I in here for?” Next to her table his staff was leant against the wall.

“Vagrancy,” she said through a mouthful of porridge. He felt a little happier. Vagrants were simply ejected from the city. If he had been jailed for blasphemy the punishment would have been much worse.

“I had money in my purse, and plenty of it.” His hand went to his chest. The purse was gone but he was not surprised.

“Not after you paid for the rootling, and paid the fine for setting it free in town.” He was about to argue, tell her he hadn’t let it loose in the town but decided not to waste his breath. There was no point. They would no doubt have plenty of witnesses among the guards to say he did, the contents of his purse shared between those same guards and their officers. There was little justice for outsiders in places like Harn-Larger, and even less for the clanless. The taxes needed to fund the war in the south squeezed towns hard, people with nothing had little charity or trust.

“You’ll let me out in the first eight?” he asked her. She stared into her bowl.

“It’s two of the first eight, you had quite the sleep. You’ll be gone from here in an hour or so, aye, when the light is full risen,” she said, still chewing.

“Is the skyraft still in?”

“Aye, and will be for a while yet.”

“Good,” he said, and moved hair out of his face. They had even stolen the small wooden ring he used to tie his long hair back. “I intend to sign on to the crew and get out of here.” She shrugged and turned away to sit at the small table with her back to him. Put down the porridge bowl and reached for her bottle with her wooden hand. The fingers creaked as they closed around the neck of it. She must have performed some great service for someone of import: the hand was willwood, and such things did not come cheap. The flesh of Wyrdwood trees fought the carver, growing spines and thorns as they were cut. Wyrdwood resented any that came in to take its bounty.

The jailer ignored him, doggedly drinking her liquor. He tried to find a comfortable place on the hard floor to wait, knowing there was a wealth of difference between being let out and being let go. “There can be an ocean between what we hear and what is said.” Nasim had told him that too, and he began to think that maybe he had somehow called the man’s ghost to him. Once more he could almost feel the small wooden toy that had belonged to the child cut down in his house. Guilt drew ghosts, everyone knew that. The thought made him feel worse. He did not think Nasim would be pleased with what he had become.

His jailer did not feed him, though she gave him a container of brackish water to swill around his mouth, which he did in an attempt to banish the foul taste. It did nothing but teach him where the foul taste had come from. Then he sat and waited quietly for his release. Eventually, his jailer asked him to stand and put his arms through the bars so she could bind him with rope.

“You think a vagrant so dangerous he must be bound?” he said. She did not answer. From the way she swayed it may have been that she did not trust herself to speak without slurring her words in drink. He watched her willwood hand work, it was a beautiful piece, the craftsmanship exquisite. From earning that to becoming a jailer in Harn-Larger, she must have fallen far.

“Come on,” she slurred as she opened the cage and ushered him out.

“Will you bring my staff?” he nodded towards it, “it has sentimental value.” She looked from him to the staff then shrugged and picked it up.

“Up there,” she said, nodding towards a door. She pushed him forward with the tip of the staff and they emerged from the dim jail into a small, bright courtyard that smelled of animal dung. In the centre was a large raft, kept afloat by large gasmaws tethered underneath the wooden bed, and pulled by four crownheads. They needed to have their fleeces sheared or they would soon be too matted to sell. On the raft were four cages. Two were occupied by sad-looking men, shivering, filthy and naked. They paid him no attention, lost in their own misery.

The rafter looked him up and down and gave the jailer a nod. Cahan let himself be loaded into a cramped cage and the jailer locked him in and retrieved her bindings. Then she and the rafter vanished, coming back with a net of bladderweed. They used the bladderweed to counter Cahan’s weight, chatting pleasantly in the way bored professional people did. He heard the jailer whisper to the rafter, “Remember, whatever you get, we share”, and then she staggered back towards her jail and her bottle. The rafter picked up Cahan’s staff from the floor and examined the carving, smiling to himself appreciatively before laying it on the bed of the raft.

Cahan had thought they would lead him past the townspeople, so he could be pelted with whatever filth they had at hand. Such things are popular in the towns and considered a good way to teach vagrants not to return.

He was relieved when they did not.

The raft left Harn-Larger through a back gate, going down a track that headed away from the town and the skyraft he had hoped to escape this place on. He looked forward, watching the path ahead and saw two figures standing either side of it. Still as stone, and as grey. The reborn who had come to him at his farm, watching him, waiting for a signal from him that he never intended to send. He did not trust reborn, fearsome warriors they may be, but from what he knew they were blunt tools. They killed the enemy and anyone that looked like the enemy, lost in battle, joy through death. Besides, he was not what they sought. He would not and could not be what they sought. That was no longer a part of his life. He had failed. Been found wanting. Cahan turned in his cage so that he faced away from the reborn who had her visor up, the same one who had talked to him at his farm. Only to find himself looking at the other, visor down, face orientated towards him, following him in the cart as it passed. He moved again, looking ahead over the shoulder of the rafter. Never pausing to think it odd the rafter had not even turned his head to look as he passed them.

He expected the raft to stop when the town was out of sight and for the rafter who was, or had been, a soldier from his cheap sap-hardened wool, to give him his marching orders and warn him what would happen if he returned to Harn-Larger. But he did not. The raft carried on, turning towards the dark line of Woodedge. He felt like he should protest, but he was strangely tired. When he finally managed to form the words in his mind he sounded more curious than angry.

“Rafter!” he said. “Hey, rafter! Where are we going? When do you let me out? I need work, and the skyraft is where I will find it.” The driver ignored him. One of the men in the other cages raised his head, looking at Cahan through bars of dirty hair. He had the eyes of a beaten man and the body of the neglected. Dirt and filth are everywhere in Crua, hunger, too, but these men were too thin, and the dirt on their bodies barely hid a multitude of bruises. The one furthest away, who paid no interest to Cahan, cradled one arm with the other as if to protect it. It looked either dislocated or broken.

Cahan began to think that nothing good awaited any of them at the end of this trip, but he found himself barely caring. How odd, he thought. How odd. As the day passed from the early eight to the middle eight they entered Woodedge on a path that looked freshly cut. It ran like an arrow through the undergrowth, pointing towards the darker, more twisted Harnwood.

Five Rai waited along the path. They were splendid in their war attire, all black, deep blue and purple cloaks and jerkins over wooden chest plates, porcelain chains around the shoulders, arms and chest, skirts of lapped wood protecting their upper legs and solid boots their lower.

“Ho, rafter,” said the first among them, a woman who wore the close-fitting polished wood cap of the Rai, smooth and sculpted like the shell of a nut. Unlike the other three she wore her visor up, the better to show the elaborate colours and swirls of her carefully applied make-up. “These are the prisoners?”

“It is so, Rai,” he said, though he sounded unsure about the title. Cahan looked more closely at her; he was not so sure she was Rai, though she carried herself as though used to power. She turned to the raft and Cahan looked down. The Rai saw a direct look as a challenge, and he did not want to risk it. With power came cruelty in Crua. Cahan thought it the cowl, though he had heard others say maybe it was true of all of the people. The monks who raised him would have had opinions on that; they had opinions on most things.

The woman, Rai or not, turned away from the rafter to one of the four Rai behind her. A squat man, whose helmet had a plume of treated and stiffened wool and whose make-up looked like it had been applied days ago and simply left.

“There, Vanhu, you have what you need.” The woman turned to another of the four, the smallest. They raised their head and Cahan was surprised to see from the markings on their face, the long blue line over their eyes, that they were a trion. He had never heard of a trion becoming Rai. Trion often acted as go-betweens in family groups, the point of pivot, though they were rare now. A trion in a marriage was more a sign of wealth than anything else. They also acted as diplomats, good at finding ways to smooth out problems. The woman straightened. “I will leave you here then.” Was there some sadness there? Cahan was not sure. Something felt wrong.

“Go then,” said the trion, but too quietly for the woman’s liking.

“What was that, Venn? Do not squeak it. Vanhu,” she motioned at the stocky Rai with the badly painted face, “tells me you are worthy of being Rai, so you must act like it. Do not be weak.”

“I will be strong,” they said, louder if no happier sounding. He wondered what this woman, important from the look of her, was doing all the way out here.

“Well, Vanhu,” she said to the squat Rai. His eyes were hard from war or cruelty, most likely both. “Do what you have promised and I will owe you a debt.” The man, Vanhu, nodded and smiled at her, but there was little warmth there.

“It gladdens me to help you, and to be the one who will bring Venn to their power and to ascend to Rai for Tarl-an-Gig.” The trion looked away and Cahan found that odd; they were not yet Rai, their cowl not yet activated by the death of another. Most could not wait to be Rai, to take on the power and rule others.

The woman gave Vanhu a curt nod.

“Rafter, leave the raft with them and act as my guard on the way back to Harn-Larger.” The rafter bowed his head in assent and jumped down from the raft to be replaced by one of the Rai. Cahan started examining his cage for a way to escape and as the woman walked past she looked into the cages. For a moment, a single count, he thought she paused at his prison. Looked at him a little more intently, then she walked on. The raft rocked, moving forward once more. What was happening here boded nothing good, but his cage was well made and the lock that held the door shut stout. Everything felt twisted, hazy and unreal.

You need me.

That voice, always there when he was weak, always tempting. He pushed it away.

The day went on, they passed through Woodedge, and as the second eight ended, darkness began closing in, they entered Harnwood. They did not go far in, for few people go far into Harnwood, even the Rai, who considered themselves powerful, began to look a little nervous as the trees of Harnwood closed in. The air changed, took on moisture and filled with the fresh scent of green and living things, the earthy scent of dead things breaking down and, maybe, behind that the stranger, headier and more colourful scent of things that were not quite living and not quite dead. Trees here grew thick with hanging moss and creeper, and the undergrowth raised itself around them into hills and walls that hemmed the raft in and steered its path.

Cahan no longer thought about getting free. The only reason for Rai to go into the forest was because there would be no one there to see what they did. So they must plan something awful. Now he worried about surviving, though it was an odd worry, somehow detached from him. As if he worried for someone else.

He watched the Rai. The man who led them, the squat one, Vanhu? He carried a sword at his hip, the other two Rai held spears. The third, the trion, was little more than a child. Venn, had the woman called them? They had no weapon, and trailed the larger Rai the way he had seen children trail adults when they are called to work. Knowing it cannot be avoided but lagging behind to keep back a few moments that they can call their own before a backbreaking day in fields unwilling to give up their bounty.

He wondered if the men in the other cages had guessed what was in store for them? Probably not; the secret ways of the Rai and their cowls were seldom shared with the common people of Crua. Besides, maybe they also felt like he did, as if they barely cared for what was to happen.

The crownheads were brought to a stop and the raft bobbed on the air.

“Are you excited, Venn?” said Vanhu, coming to stand before the trion. “Today is to be a great day for you, eh?”

“Uhn,” said Venn, in the non-committal grunt of the young the world over.

“Kyik, Sorha,” shouted Vanhu, “open the doors.” He walked over to the carts. Stood before the cages. “You are here for a whipping,” he said. “Be compliant and you will only have the sentence carried out, ten lashes each. Struggle and we double that. Fight, and we will whip the skin off your back and leave you for the boughry to string up in the trees.” The other two prisoners, exhausted, filthy and beaten, only nodded their heads. Cahan sat with his head bowed, teeth gritted.

“Do not do this,” said Cahan to the floor of the cage. Within him something stirred and he held it back. Cowl users could sense the cowl in another.

You need me.

No.

He must not.

“Quiet,” said Vanhu. He had a hard face. Scarred by war and burned from the use of his cowl. His eyes were pale, often Cahan had seen this in cowl users of an age, eyes as pale and worn as their morals. “Speak again and I will put the lashes on you myself, and I am strong, you do not want that.” All he could do not to lock eyes with him, old pride fighting its way up. The cowl writhing beneath his skin.

You need me.

No.

To meet the gaze of the Rai would be death for the clanless. And a whipping? He could take such things, he had borne them before and could bear it again.

It is not a whipping.

No.

He knew it was not a whipping. But that strange fog in his mind. Maybe it really was only a whipping.

It is an awakening.

The other prisoners were taken from the raft to where poles had been dug into the ground. Four of them. The men were tied, hands above their heads. He wondered why they were so passive, so willing to let themselves be led. The one with the broken arm did not even cry out when they yanked his arms above his head.

When they came for Cahan he was ready to fight them. The cage was unlocked, the two Rai, Sorha and Kyik, reached in for him. His mind told him to fight, but his body refused. His limbs, legs, arms, hands were limp.

The brackish water given in the jail. The way the jailer had turned away from him as he drank. He must have been drugged.

Something of his desire to break free, now denied him by his body, must have shown on his face. The Rai named Sorha smiled at him.

“Thought you may cause some trouble, eh, big fellow?” she said with a laugh as they pulled him from the cage. His body would barely obey him, he was in no state to try and run, never mind fight. The Rai dragged him across to a post and bound his wrists above his head.

He felt the forest watching.

It was as if the trees held their breath.

When he was bound the Rai did not strip him, or the others, of their clothes for whipping. They had them trussed and helpless, there was no need for pretence now.

In their drugged stupor the other two men made no noise and no complaint. As Cahan hung there the pain grew in his shoulders. He hoped it meant control of his body might slowly be coming back. For all the good it would do.

You need me.

Closed his eyes. Banished the voice.

The Rai lit a fire, took their time doing it. Once it was going well, crackling and spitting in the cold night air, they took a switch of herbs from a bag and set it smouldering. Then they stripped the trion to an undertunic and passed the burning herbs over their skin, muttering words and incantations as the trion coughed on the smoke. Cahan did not know exactly what they said, could not quite hear them, but he knew words like them, old words that had been spoken again and again over generations. Words meant to awake a cowl and have it lend them power. After every four sentences the oldest, Vanhu, raised the smouldering herbs to the sky and shouted out the name of Tarl-an-Gig. Cahan thought them fools to bring ritual fire into the forest; even here at the edge of Harnwood it was likely to attract the attention of those none should wish to look upon, orit, swarden, greenling or skinfetch. Creatures real, half-forgotten and imagined. Or even worse, the boughry, the Woodhewn Nobles of Wyrdwood. Old gods, with their own agendas, that none could understand.

But worry over the creatures of the forest was driven away by the pain in his arms and shoulders as he hung on the stake, his feet only just touching the ground. The other prisoners did not seem bothered by it, but they were smaller than he was. The drug probably worked better, or they may have had a larger dose. And, of course, they did not have cowls beneath their skin. One of the men groaned and the Rai Vanhu turned to look at him.

“So, Venn, looks like the gullan juice is starting to wear off.” He led the trion over to the first stake. The firelight made their walk a jagged, jerking puppet thing. The man tied before them stared vacantly, said nothing. The corners of his mouth wet with drool. “The rituals are done, your cowl is ready. This man,” he grabbed the bound man by the hair and pulled his head back, “he has no clan. He is lowborn and follows filthy forest gods if he follows any at all. He is forsaken by the great monasteries. His life, Venn, it is nothing. He is a criminal.” He let go of him. Stepped back. “But this flesh before you can be made into something. It can be important. Useful. Everything it is not now.”

“I don’t want this,” those words from the trion, soft and shy as new leaves. “I will not do it.”

“Want does not matter,” said Vanhu, “you are born to be Rai. You must come into your power. Your strength is needed. The cowl needs death to awake. The more pain you cause, the more powerful you will be in the end.”

“Do not do this,” said Cahan softly. They paid no attention to him. The drug was still working in his body, the forest on the edges of his vision blurred as if it constantly moved.

You need me.

No.

“Now, trion,” said Vanhu. “Fire is the easiest way, and the quickest.”

“Most impressive, too,” said one of the other Rai, the woman Sorha.

“But, Venn,” said Vanhu, “if you worry you may be weak in the face of pain, that the smell of burning flesh may soften your bones, then water kills them quiet, with little sign.”

“It is harder to control,” said Sorha, “but they do not scream.” Behind her the shadowy figure of the third Rai, Kyik, stepped forward, grinning.

“Do not do this,” said Cahan, more loudly. They ignored him.

“When you are more advanced,” said Vanhu, “there are many things you can do by throwing the cowl, rip a man apart, and I have heard the Cowl-Rai can even bring their warriors back from the dead. I know they can lay waste to entire battlefields. I have seen it.”

“No,” said the trion.

“But to harness that power, Venn,” he said, “you must feed the cowl. It is simple, put your hand on this waste of flesh, give his pain and his life to that which lives within you.” He pointed at the man. “This can only be done by touch, you must share the experience with the cowl or it will not feed, it will not grow and increase in power.” The trion did not move, they stood frozen in the leaf litter. It is a big step to take a life.

“It is simple,” said Sorha, “touch him and will your cowl onto him. You need not even choose a method, your cowl will have a way it favours. But do not let it feast, starve it a little, make it obey you.” She took a step nearer, fire flickering over her armour. “It is a good way to know your cowl, then to master it, control it.”

“Listen, child,” said Vanhu, his voice cold. “These men, they are already dead. They are a burden on all others. You do the blue of the north a favour.”

“I don’t want to hurt them,” those words the trion spoke as they stared fixedly at the ground, so loaded with pain and misery. Vanhu smiled.

“Do not do this,” said Cahan. Vanhu looked to his compatriots.

“Sorha,” he said to the woman with the spear. “Venn clearly wishes to avoid pain, they care for others. Use the first of these men. Show Venn how it is done.”

“Do not do this!” and now Cahan shouted it. Now the Rai turned. Now they saw him.

You need me.

“The clanless fool thinks to order his betters about,” said Vanhu to Venn, “see what happens when you are not strong, trion? They think you are weak and you can be sure if they think you are weak then they will try to take what is yours.”

“I will not hurt them,” said the trion.

“That trion is stronger than all of you,” shouted Cahan. Vanhu walked over to him, twigs snapping beneath his boots. Fire crackling around him. He stared into the forester’s face.

“We will see if you still like that one,” he pointed at the trion, “so much when they are burning the skin from your body, eh? And you are big, you have a lot of skin.” He smiled. “Venn will kill the second man, to save him from pain because that is their weakness.” He leaned in close. “But then the cowl will have them, they will not worry so much about pain then. I will use you to teach them control.” He cocked his head to one side. “You will scream long into the night.”

You need me.

“You will regret this,” the words forced about between Cahan’s teeth. “Walk away from this place.” Within him a hoarfrost of panic coated his organs, tendrils of fury slipped around his lungs, making breathing hard. The voice again.

You need me.

The Rai’s face twitched. Cahan wondered if he sensed the cowl in the way he could feel it in the Rai. If he did he must have thought it a mistake. Clanless with a cowl? To one like him the idea must be unthinkable. He turned away from Cahan, back to the woman with the spear.

“Sorha, show Venn the way.” She gave him a nod, reached out for the first man. He did not cry out, not at first. Unlikely he knew what was happening. The Rai put her hand on the man’s arm, turned to the trion.

“Touch, Venn, as Vanhu said, is the only way to feed your cowl.” She gave him a small nod. “This moment, between you and him and your cowl. It is sacred, child, it is a communion directly with Tarl-an-Gig. You talk with a god through another’s agony. You sacrifice to build us in their power. We are Rai. Iftal broke his body to deny the Osere control of his power. But gave us cowls to do the god’s bidding. You will your cowl onto those who will feed it. In this moment, you are as a god. You hold a life in your hand.” Cahan heard the forest shift, the wind still. The constant motion of the trees stopped and something he could not shut out screamed and raved and hungered in the back of his mind. “It is like a push, inside your head.” The raving became a howl, but one from very far away. It was like the echo of a wild hunting creature, heard by a city man in the centre of a quiet town. Something forgotten and left behind, something that chilled the blood. A memory of an ancient terror that the enclosing walls could never truly shut out.

The screaming began. With it came the stink of singeing flesh. The man on the stake struggling and writhing and crying as Sorha’s fire ate into him.

“I will where he burns,” said Sorha. She spoke with the same hunger, the same howl, Cahan felt in his mind. “His shoulders.” Smoke rose from the tops of his arms, his hair caught and he screamed more, begged for it to stop, for the fire flowing through his veins to leave his body. The pain so deep it tore away the narcotic veil. The trion watched, shaking their head and mouthing “no”, again and again and again. Trying to back up but finding the third of their group, Kyik, behind them. Holding them by the shoulders. Forcing them to watch as the man begged and burned. “You do not like the noise of his pain, child?” she said, those pale eyes locked on him. “I will stop it.” A fire burned in her victim’s mouth, flames shooting out and scorching his lips, ending his cries though not his agonies. His body jerked and spasmed as she manipulated the heat within him. The crying and the hunger and the howl in the forester’s mind grew. He fought against his bonds.

“Just end him!” Cahan’s words, screamed out as he fought his bonds. “End him quickly, you cowards! Just end him!” A fist against his face, blacking out the world for a moment, bursting his lips and the veins inside his nose. Warm blood running down his face.

“Quiet, filth.”

But he would not be quiet, and with every word he spat blood and fury.

“Stop this, take me if you must”, and he had dreaded hearing those words from his mouth. He was not strong enough to give in. Knew this could only end one way. “Stop this.”

They did not stop, they did not care what some clanless vagrant thought or said. The woman continued to burn the man, talking the trion through his pain as she worked her cowl, letting it feed on his agony and misery as he died. When she had finished, the clearing full of the smoke and stink of charring flesh, he was nothing but a blackened shape hanging from ropes which remained untouched by the fire.

“Now,” she said, taking away her hand. “Tarl-an-Gig is pleased. We do this in the name of the god and the Cowl-Rai in rising, Venn. The one who prophecy told of, and who will sweep away the evil of the Chyi’s rule, the red flags gone and will bring us plenty.” Her words were animated, and carried far more conviction than when Vanhu spoke. “For them, we do this, Venn. For the Cowl-Rai this man died. His life gave me power.” She held up her hand and a tendril of fire leapt out, burning through the untouched rope around the corpse’s wrist. The body fell to shatter on the forest floor. “My cowl has grown, Venn, a small amount. It grows with every death, makes us stronger. The people think their sacrifice fuels us, but it is nothing compared to death. We are the engine of the blue. We must not falter. We must not be weak. Victory is close.” In her eyes shone the surety of the fanatic. He had known monks like that in the monastery. They had always been the cruellest, though he doubted her devotion was to any god. Rai cared only for themselves. “Now,” she pointed at the second man, “it is your turn. For Tarl-an-Gig, chosen of Broken Iftal. For the Cowl-Rai in rising. For the High Leoric of Harn. For us all.”

“We will burn each one, slowly, Venn,” said Vanhu. He stepped forward. “And all of that pain will be yours. On you. And, if by the time the last one dies, you have not woken your cowl,” the Rai turned, his back to Cahan. His face towards the trion. “Then I will burn you as a traitor. Do you understand?” he said. “You are not protected here.”

The trion stood, breathing hard, staring at the shattered remains of a man on the forest floor.

“No,” they said, “I will not do it.” And though their voice wavered Cahan marvelled at their bravery. At the trion’s age, he had not had such strength.

“These deaths are yours then,” said Vanhu and turned away.

“Do not listen, child.” Cahan’s breath came short, his mind full of colours and stains and blood and death, “What they do is on them. It is not on you, it should not lie on your conscience.”

“Quiet!” another fist to the face. Vanhu stood before him again. “I have had enough of you”, he spat in the forester’s face. “It is not your place to speak before the Rai. You are clanless and less than nothing. The trion’s next lesson is now you. I will make this lesson a long one.” His washed-out pale eyes met Cahan’s.

“Do not do this,” said the forester softly, “you can still walk away. I am not as strong as the trion.” The Rai laughed, not a real laugh. The laugh of something cold and pleased with itself.

“You are not strong at all,” he said, “Clanless.” He placed his hand on Cahan’s chest, stared into Cahan’s eyes. “Tell me this before you die. The rafter told me of your crime. Why does a man with a good amount of money in his pocket, a clanless man who should lie low, throw it all away for a rootling?” There was real confusion in his pale, cruel eyes. Cahan wondered what he could say that the Rai would understand. Realised there was nothing.

“It seemed like the right thing to do.”

“Right?” said Vanhu. “That is a luxury your kind do not have.” The pressure of his hand on Cahan’s chest lessened for a moment. A look of confusion, fleeting, here and gone. “Knowing what is to come. Do you regret it? What you did?” He studied Cahan as if he were some strange new creature that had been born of the forest.

“No”, and Cahan found that was true. He did not regret helping the rootling, not at all. The Rai cocked his head to one side and Cahan knew that what he said was as beyond the Rai’s understanding as the strange language spoken by the rootlings and the boughry at the deep shrines was beyond his.

“Well,” said Vanhu, “you will.”

Slowly the Rai pushed his will into his cowl. Cahan felt it, the movement slow, like some gelid liquid as he pushed his power into the forester’s skin.

Cahan’s vision cleared. At the edge of the clearing did he see two grey figures? Too late for them now.

You

The Rai’s face changed. Confusion.

Need

As he found it harder than it should be.

Me.

The Rai’s cowl no longer moved in concert with his will. He looked at his hand. Then back at Cahan’s face.

“How?” he said, and for a count his puzzled, slightly worried expression made him look like one of the people once more. Cahan heard the voice of the reborn woman who had come to his farm, who waited at the edge of the clearing to be called. “I can sense death, Cahan Du-Nahere and it is drawn to you. Deny it all you wish, it is still coming.” He answered the Rai in a whisper that only he could hear. He felt the tendrils of his cowl move beneath his skin.

“They say only one Cowl-Rai rises in a generation.” Vanhu tried to pull his hand away. Found he could not. “Rai Vanhu,” said Cahan, “that is a lie.”

And that was when the killing began.