Chapter Text
PROLOGUE
Jasper crouched by the fire, remembering.
He had walked out into the wilderness, away from his tribe, to the place where it all began. Among the ancient redwoods–which had looked down on humans and hara, and even on that which had come before–there was a place dear to Jasper’s heart. The burnt-out husk of the huge tree formed a natural circle, charred fragments of its trunk tracing a perimeter some twenty feet across. Ferns and the shoots of small trees grew in the nutrient-rich soil left behind by the burning. Moss and lichen clung to the fire-blackened fragments of trunk.
In the center of the circle, the brush had been cleared, and a fire pit was dug. A merry little blaze burned in it now, illuminating Jasper’s tired, pensive face.
Jasper was very beautiful, even by harish standards. His gleaming black hair was held back by an ancient bandana, faded from black to gray. His jeans and vest were also relics of the before times. The stained denim had gone soft and supple. His boots were of a brand once popular among edgy youths, but they were now no longer recognizable, held together by an unlikely patchwork of duct tape, animal skins, and welded scrap metal. Dozens of mismatched bracelets wrapped his slim wrists. Spiked leather bands, metal bangles, and stone beads clicked together as he shifted his weight, staring into the fire. He had a strong, lovely face, with features indigenous to the continent—full lips, high cheekbones, dark eyes, and smooth brown skin.
This spot among the redwoods whispered to him of memories, but so far it had not given him answers. Jasper closed his eyes, rocking gently back and forth as if trying to jog his own mind with the motion.
Incepted to Uigenna, he’d had little caste training. His knowledge of magic came from the human past. In another lifetime, a curious teen with dark inclinations had riffled impatiently through books of varying helpfulness and quality. He’d hoarded cartomancy decks and semi-precious stones bought with his scant pocket change (or occasionally shoplifted). His interest in such matters had not only persisted but increased after inception, as he found his modest natural abilities greatly sharpened by the transformation. Some of his bolder hara teased him and called him a witch, but they meant no ill. In fact, Jasper knew that his phyle enjoyed having a warlock for a phylarch. It made them a little different from other Uigenna. It gave them pride, a sense of who they were. It had even given them their phyle name, Brujeros.
Jasper sighed and tried to compose himself for meditation. He rarely found this difficult, but tonight, he was troubled. It was taking him longer than usual to rise to the astral plane.
The dreams that plagued him, that had driven him back to this place, had been growing more vivid over the past week. They did not make for restful slumber. Jasper had been walking through his days like a zombie, suspended between sleeping and waking, dreams and reality, continually on the brink of unshed tears. His hara were starting to notice. Jasper must not let them see him crack. He needed to find answers tonight.
He opened his eyes, and uncurled his clenched fist, revealing a handful of shriveled mushrooms. They smelled musty and would taste foul, but their poison was not strong enough to harm a har. Jasper had been saving them for just such an occasion, when the ethers seemed closed to him.
With a grimace, he popped them into his mouth, gagging on the acrid taste but dutifully chewing just the same. He washed them down with a swig from the flask at his hip. Then he lay back, his head pillowed on a mossy stone. He stared up at the night sky through the trees. It was black without stars tonight, as was often the case—the thick haze of smoke that lay over this land rarely allowed a glimpse of them. He closed his eyes again to wait.
He didn’t know how long it had been. Perhaps he had drowsed. His eyes opened, and he sat up with a start.
He was still in the grove. Three hara sat crouched by the fire, which should have smoldered to embers by now, but instead was burning high and bright. Jasper tensed and reached for his machete, then relaxed upon recognition. He knew these hara. One of them was himself. He must have made it to the astral plane after all.
This supposition was confirmed when he looked down and saw his physical body still lying upon its bed of rocks and leaves. It wasn’t his physical eyes that had opened, then, but his third eye. The fungus had done its work. He stood outside himself in astral form—doubly outside himself, gazing at both his own corporeal body, and at a projection of his past.
Filled with dread, Jasper’s spirit moved towards the fire. He pondered where to sit. He could hunker down beside his memory-self, but then he’d be viewing the scene from the same perspective as before. What would be the use? If he was to relive this moment, better to take on a different point of view.
So Jasper walked around the circle until he stood behind the har who faced his past self. He knew this har, as he knew the others. He was loath to look at any of their faces, but it had to be done. Bracing himself, he looked across the circle into his own face—and that of his erstwhile chesnari, Gunner.
Seeing Gunner again brought a pang. You’d think that face would be burned into Jasper’s memory, but on the contrary, he’d done everything he could to banish it from his mind. He’d forgotten how gorgeous Gunner had been. Some hara considered the dense freckles dappling Gunner’s skin to be a flaw. His odd coloring, likewise, was not to all tastes. But Jasper found him heart-breakingly beautiful. Everything about Gunner came in shades of cinnamon—his skin surprisingly dark beneath the freckles, his coppery hair in its tight wiry curls. Even his brown eyes had a reddish cast. When Jasper had first seen Gunner, who was then a young human male, he’d simply had to have him. It was his blood that made Gunner har; he, Jasper, who had sealed the transformation with the first aruna.
An uncomfortable thought intruded upon Jasper’s mind:
I was arrogant. I made him, so I thought him mine.
He looked over at his past self now. He saw, with obscure disgust, that he’d been wearing the exact same clothes he had on now. Something about that made him angry with himself. Predictable. I am always so predictable.
He did not need to see the face of the third har, the one he stood behind. His eyes had been glued to that face the first time this conversation had taken place. He remembered it too well. He suspected he would see nothing new on it. Besides, it had been haunting his dreams all week. He was thoroughly sick of that visage.
He did briefly look down at the third har’s back, however. The har sat with his spine straight, his shoulders relaxed. He was wrapped in a long black robe of what appeared to be linen. His clothing was loose fitting yet flattering, and appeared new and clean, aside from a layer of dust along the hemline. This garb was practical for the desert from which he had come, covering him up to provide protection from the sun, yet breathable enough to be cool. Even his pale hands were wrapped in strips of the same material, leaving only his long fingers exposed. Rings glittered on them. He was dressed, in short, like a Kakahaar, though not in their usual sandy colors.
The three figures appeared frozen, as if on pause, although the fire danced between them. Jasper realized that the replay of this conversation awaited his will. He wasn’t sure how to start it. Experimentally, he snapped his fingers.
This seemed to do the trick.
“In meetings, hearts beat closer,” said the black shrouded har. He had a very strange voice—soft, feminine, but also breathy and hoarse. It was like the voice of a ghost. Even now, it sent a shiver through Jasper’s being.
His former self did not respond in kind to the traditional Uigenna greeting. After all, coming from an outsider, it was just short of an insult. “Why have you come here?” He bluntly asked instead. “This is our territory.”
“Is it?” the black-shrouded har spoke with a smile in his voice. “These trees have been here a very long time. I think it is theirs.”
Jasper watched himself shift impatiently. “The trees don’t care who lives here,” he said. “The Brujeros do.”
“Brujerossss.” The black-shrouded har stretched out the sibilant. Gunner lifted his chin and glared at him across the fire, cracking his knuckles. Jasper rested a quelling hand on his chesnari’s shoulder, but glared as well, his body tense. Both clearly believed they were being mocked, and awaited a barb. But instead the black-cloaked har seemingly changed the subject. “You are wrong. The trees do care. They called me, even from across the land.”
Gunner snorted. “I think you are crazy, Tiahaar.” Jasper flinched to watch himself fidgeting, clearly discomfited yet doing nothing to control his brash chesnari. “You should leave here,” Gunner continued, “Before your mystical nonsense gets you into trouble.”
“If you really are Brujeros,” said the har from the desert, “You know better than to call it mystical nonsense.”
Jasper scoffed. “So you remember some of the old languages, gringo. Do you think that impresses me?”
The desert har shrugged, and emitted a soft laugh, but did not reply. Jasper went on.
“You know our phyle name. We do not know yours. Tell us who you are.”
The stranger put his head to the side and seemed to think vexingly long and hard about whether and how to answer this simple question. Jasper shot Gunner an annoyed glance, as if seeking commiseration. Gunner did not look back at him. Jasper watched his own gaze slide off his erstwhile chesnari like water off a duck’s back. It was a small thing, subtle. But it should have been a warning. He hated to think that the har from the desert could see it, too—probably more clearly than he had seen it himself at the time.
“I am Magda,” the stranger said at last. “Magda har Nox, har Kakkahaar.”
“And you talk to trees,” Gunner said scornfully.
“Trees talk to me,” Magda corrected. “They know many secrets. Do you know how to listen, Uigenna?”
Jasper remembered how Magda’s gaze had held him, steadily, like a focused beam of light. He was disappointed to learn how much he had resembled a deer in it.
“Yes,” his past self answered, and Jasper winced. The lie had been even less convincing than he’d thought at the time.
Magda laughed softly. “You are not wrong to call yourself Brujero,” he said, “Although I suspect you are the only one of your phyle worthy of the name. It is clear you have some talent. There is much I could teach you, phylarch.”
Jasper spat on the ground to express his contempt. “What would I want with your lessons, Kakkahaar?”
“You are very young, little one,” Magda said. “As our race is. I am older than most. I have learned much since humanity fell.” His voice took on a singsong tone. “I was Uigenna once, too. I stood among the first six. I know the face of our maker. He left his children to our bloody foolishness. I was one of those who tried to follow him. We never found him, but out in the desert, we found a better way.”
Gunner laughed. “Would you like a laxative? Because you are so unbelievably full of shit.”
“Shut up, puppy.” Magda’s hiss, shockingly venomous, cut across Gunner’s words. “I am speaking to your big sister. You should be quiet unless directly addressed. It’s not just the trees whose secrets I can read.”
Gunner surged to his feet, flushed and furious, his hand going to the weapon at his side. Jasper grabbed his wrist and pulled him back down to the ground. While he was irritated, even then he had recognized Magda’s habit of feminine gendering as a relic of catty human gays. It mainly gave credence to his claim to be old.
“Watch your own tongue, sis,” he snapped back at Magda. “This is a parlay. Until it is over, you are a guest here. When it is over, you may be an enemy invader. And it may be over very soon, unless I hear something that I like. So far it’s been all insults and tall-tales. Do you have anything better to offer me, Magda?”
Despite Jasper’s efforts to comport himself as a phylarch, there was much in his tone of the defiant teenager. It made him cringe, but not as much as Gunner’s body language as he shook off Jasper’s hand and scooted away from him, muttering resentfully under his breath. This was not the conduct of a lover. How had Jasper failed so abysmally to sense Gunner’s growing distance? It was excruciating to realize how oblivious he had been. Worse, he was certain that Magda had been as keenly aware of the dynamics as he had been blind to them.
Magda chuckled softly. "Fair enough, pretty phylarch. You are right. It doesn't have to be this way." He spread out his hands, palm up, as if offering an invisible platter. "My phyle is a hundred strong. I do not know what numbers you can boast, but I have my suspicions based on what we observed of your settlement."
Jasper managed to keep his face unreadable, although he remembered how his blood had run cold. Gunner's mask was less effective. His eyes went wide at the words ‘one hundred strong.’ Of Brujeros, there were only forty-five.
Magda went on. “With your consent or without, we mean to settle here. I seriously doubt you can stop us. But I like you, Jasper.”
Jasper remembered how Magda's eyes had held his, their pale green stare, ophidian and cold. For the first time, he noticed that Magda had addressed him by name, without being told it.
"The feeling is not mutual," Jasper said. There was a quaver in his voice, a tremor in his lip. Dammit, he had been so obviously afraid.
"Give me time," Magda husked, "I've been told I can grow on a har. Anyway, it's not necessary for you to like me, sweetling. Your pretty face makes me feel generous. Blood-bond with me. Become my consort. The Nox and the Brujeros can unite, one glorious new tribe out of two misfit phyles. Everyhar will be happy."
Gunner had gone very still. Jasper's eyes blazed with fury, and his voice cracked with barely controlled emotion.
"I would never blood-bond with you," he snapped, "Never be your consort, even were I not soon to be bonded with my chesnari." He reached out to grip Gunner's hand tightly. Gunner allowed it, but did not move any closer. He slung no protective arm around Jasper's shoulders, he radiated neither love nor warmth. On the contrary, he looked ready to run.
Magda laughed. "Don't be foolish. This is a better offer than you have any right to refuse. You can even keep your little friend. I am not jealous. I do not ask for your devotion, your fidelity, or even your body, beyond what ceremony may require. I am extending you an offer of friendship, the opportunity to make a smart alliance—from which you stand to benefit far more than I. Think, Jasper." His voice dropped to a near whisper. "Do not be hasty."
Something made Jasper snap his fingers again, freeze the scene. He walked around the circle to stand behind himself, so that he could look at Magda. He had thought there would be no new information for him in that face, but he had been wrong. The first time this had happened, Jasper had been nearly blinded with fury, deafened by the blood roaring in his ears. He had perceived Magda as haughty, menacing, condescending. Now he wondered if it had truly been so.
He stood there and studied Magda's countenance. It was hard to imagine this har surviving long in the desert sun, and easy to see why he shrouded himself so thoroughly. He was white like a worm, or like something that lived in a cave. It has been said that all hara are beautiful, but it was difficult to decide if Magda was or not. He had dark, somewhat greasy-looking hair that fell past his shoulders, but his eyelashes and eyebrows were so pale as to be barely visible, which gave him the odd, alien look of a medieval German princess. He gave his washed-out face a little definition with heavy black eyeshadow. Below those darkened lids, his eyes were the color of pale jade, a curiously unsaturated green. The only thing definitely beautiful about him was his mouth, which was full and very red. That mouth was like a vampire, it seemed to have leached all of the blood from the rest of his skin. It was a horrifying face at first glance, but it made you need to look at it again. In the moment in which it was frozen, its expression was not unkind. There was a strange softness in those pale eyes, almost a vulnerability. Was it possible?
Yes, Jasper realized. He was hurt by my rejection.
Unnerved, Jasper snapped his fingers, allowing the scene to resume.
"Here is my counteroffer," he heard his own voice, thick with rage. "Take yourself and your hara away from this place. Be gone from my territory by dawn. Otherwise, blood begins to flow."
Magda was silent, unmoving, almost as if he had not heard. He sat staring at Jasper across the fire, still as a waxwork.
Jasper’s voice rose. “I said—”
“I heard you,” Magda broke in. “This is your final answer?”
“Yes,” Jasper snapped.
Magda rose gracefully in a rustle of linen, his rings and bracelets clinking. “Very well,” he said. “I will see you at dawn, on the field of battle. Hold your pup tight tonight,” he advised blandly, flicking a contemptuous look at Gunner.
Gunner told Magda what he should hold tight. Magda laughed softly, shook his head, and, with a final glance at Jasper, departed the circle.
In an instant, Gunner was on his feet, with his crossbow cocked and aimed at Magda’s retreating back. His expression was savage, his lip curled in bloodlust. “Just say the word, Jasper,” he grated. “Say the word. Please.”
“No, chesnari,” said Jasper. “He came to parlay. We must let him go.”
“Why?” Gunner demanded, but he lowered the bow. “We could solve all our problems with him right now.”
“I doubt killing him would solve all our problems with the Nox,” Jasper said drily. “They outnumber us two to one.”
“They outnumber us two to one, and you wanna fight fair ?”
“Rules of engagement mean something,” Jasper said. “Honor means something. It has to.”
“Honor? More like your pride.” Gunner’s expression was mutinous.
“What was I supposed to do?” Jasper demanded. “Take his offer?”
Gunner opened his mouth, and closed it again. Jasper watched himself watching him take a little too long to say anything in reply.
“No,” Gunner said at last. “No. Of course not.” His tone was subdued. “So what are we gonna do?”
Jasper stayed quiet for a minute. He stared into the flames, hands clenching and unclenching as he thought. “We have the home advantage. I don’t know if the trees talk to that crazy har or not, but we know the land. His hara are used to fighting in open spaces. We can use that.” His voice grew more confident. “We can use the trees.”
Gunner let out a bitter chuckle. “Use the trees. Fine.” He didn’t sound convinced. “Well, I suppose we’d better start preparing.”
He made to leave the circle. Jasper watched himself reach for Gunner’s hand, catch it. “Wait,” he said. “Stay.”
Gunner turned, his expression bespeaking fear and exasperation. Maybe a little love? Jasper searched his face for it, stared into the warm brown eyes, just as his past self searched as well. He had seen it then, or thought he had. He did not see it now. It mortified him to watch himself stand and strip in the firelight, until he stood bare and vulnerable, hair flowing loose down to his hips, his arms outstretched in appeal. Gunner licked his lips in involuntary lust, but his eyes still looked resentful and suspicious.
“Please,” Jasper heard himself say, “Please, Gunner. Take me here.”
Gunner appeared more incredulous than enthusiastic. But he had a sense of fealty left, if nothing else. He obeyed his phylarch, and undid his trousers.
Jasper was loath to watch this. He didn’t want to go through it again. But some masochistic impulse compelled him to stay. He settled his astral self upon a log near the trysting lovers and watched intently, neurotically scanning for any sign of tenderness in touch, in speech, in glance.
Once, a long time ago, before he became Wraeththu and when he had a different name, the jilted teenager who would become Jasper had listened again and again to a mixtape made for him by a boy who had turned cruel. He had analyzed the lyrics for secret messages, obsessed over artist names and song titles and what they could mean. This was like that, but worse. He picked apart the minutiae of every thrust, every labored breath. He saw the stars shining in his own eyes, heard himself cry his lover’s name like a prayer. In Gunner, he saw only duty, boredom, and the mechanical operations of lust. I was taking holy communion, he was performing a bodily function, no more meaningful to him than the excretion of waste, and only a little more satisfying.
“Gunner,” he heard himself gasp, “Come deeper, deeper into me.”
“I’m all the way in,” Gunner panted.
“No,” Jasper’s eyes were tightly closed, “I know you can go deeper. Something in me is open. I can feel it.”
Gunner looked skeptical, but his eyes widened upon his next thrust, then rolled back. “Oh,” he sighed, and for the first time a little more interest seemed to kindle in him, “Damn. You’re right.”
They stared at one another in wonder, awed by the capacities of their still mysterious bodies. Jasper wrapped his legs and arms more tightly around Gunner, pulling him in, rocking him in his embrace.
“Come on,” he whispered breathlessly, “Breed me. Give me a harling. Please!”
Gunner stiffened and tried to pull back. “I… we don’t know how.”
“We can do it,” Jasper murmured. “I know it. We are so close. Please.”
“I’m afraid,” Gunner said, and Jasper, watching, could have wept for Jasper under Gunner, and for the most truthful words that his ex-chesnari would speak that night.
“It’s OK,” Jasper whispered, “I promise. I need it Gunner, please. Give me a life to carry inside me. Some hope to take into the war.”
Whether from duty, or pity, or simple biological necessity, Gunner relented. The clearing filled with their orgasmic cries. Astral Jasper couldn’t take anymore. He stood, and walked from the circle. He had seen enough. He couldn’t bear to watch the cuddling, or hear the pillow talk. It had all been bullshit.
At first, his spirit wandered blindly through the trees. He did not know why, or what he expected to find. He could simply have returned to his body, ended this vision of the past. But the night called to him, urging him to lose his disembodied self in the dark spaces between the redwoods. Perhaps he longed for healing. Perhaps, on some unconscious level, he knew there were more truths to learn.
A length, he grew aware of a presence, of something still and watching.
He turned. He scanned the dark woods, straining to make out distinct shapes in the gloom. A flash of white caught his eye. There was Magda, with his vampire face, his wound of a mouth. He stood perfectly still, staring into the darkness, his head cocked as if listening—for what? The sounds of aruna in the distance? Jasper felt nauseous. Had Magda eavesdropped on the whole thing?
As he stood staring in disbelief, the impossible happened. The Magda of the past, this shade of things gone by, looked straight at Jasper. He looked straight at the invisible, the astral, and he saw. Their eyes met. Magda smiled.
“I knew you’d come eventually,” he said.
Jasper jolted back to his body with a shock. His mouth was wide open as if to gulp in air, or to let out a silent scream. He was very cold. The fire had indeed burned down to smoking embers. The grove was empty of all apparitions, and hazy dawn was lightening the sky.
Jasper lay gasping for a few moments. His pulse raced, his chest heaved. He was shaken by what he had seen, and by what had seen him.
Only two things could have happened. Either one would have been equally absurd.
First, the Magda of the past could have actually seen him. For that to be possible, Jasper would have needed to travel back in time, rather than merely projecting into a memory. He was fairly certain he had not done so.
Second, perhaps the Magda he had seen in the woods had not been a shade of memory. Magda was a great adept, at least as capable as Jasper of astral travel. Their wandering spirits could simply have run into each other. But that was impossible, because Magda was dead.
Jasper shivered. He hadn’t even considered option three, “ghost.” Not that he didn’t believe in ghosts—quite the contrary. He’d seen ghosts all his life. He’d been raised to revere his ancestors, to commune with dead grandparents, aunts and uncles on Día de los Muertos. He just really, really didn’t want to believe in Magda’s ghost.
What will it take to get rid of you?
Jasper walked back to the settlement as the sun was rising.
Their home among the redwoods had once been a human campground, a place of recreation. A building which had once been the visitor center now served as a central hub for the phyle. They referred to it as the Lodge. Here, weapons and supplies were stockpiled. Group meals were prepared and eaten within—or sometimes outside on the dilapidated picnic tables nearby, when the weather was fine. Most of the time the Brujeros slept in the scattered tent cabins that still stood in the area, but when it stormed, there was enough space in the more substantial Lodge for all to shelter there.
The outside of the Lodge had been decorated with colorful graffiti. Empty bottles hung from the eaves, clanking together like wind chimes. The windows were boarded up. Gunner, who was handy with a spray can, had painted wide, staring eyes on all of them.
Several Brujeros were lounging on the porch. Jasper’s hara were not, as a rule, early risers, so these were most likely stragglers who hadn’t yet slept. The phylarch tolerated this behavior under the flimsy excuse that the partiers could serve as a “night watch.” Not even this lax security had been necessary, of course, since Magda had been driven off. Jasper wondered if times were about to change again, and whether vigilance would soon become necessary once more.
The Brujeros watched their phylarch approach, nursing their bottles of moonshine and their hand-rolled cigarettes. Much like Jasper, they were dressed mostly in the patched and tattered remnants of their human wardrobes. Many sported hand-poked tattoos and partially shaved hairstyles—on one of their luckiest raids, the Brujeros had managed to come by a solar powered generator and a set of electric clippers. Dyed hair, however, was a largely a thing of the past. Nohar had been able to loot any hair color for ages, and neither had anyone successfully figured out how to concoct plant-based substitutes. Some of the lighter-haired hara had managed to bleach their manes with a combination of lemon juice and sun, but for now, all others had to be content with their natural color. As if to compensate for this mundanity of hue, the hara decorated their locks in every other way conceivable—braids and plaits were twined with beads, feathers, seashells, and in one instance, even bullet casings.
As Jasper drew near, they unfolded themselves from their positions curled around bottles, hunched on the steps, or draped over each other, and rose, calling out greetings. They were fond of their phylarch. He’d led them well, kept life good for them. He never demanded too much formality, yet had proven himself worthy of his authority whenever push came to shove. Like them, he was dedicated to the best of the Uigenna spirit—carefree, independent, impossible to tame. Like him, these hara were not as interested in violence for its own sake as some others of their tribe—though when the situation demanded it, they were capable of extreme brutality. All Brujeros wanted the same two things: an endless party in the woods, and to be left alone.
Jasper’s heart ached with affection for them. He tried his best to match their exuberance. After all, if they could act so glad to see him after a sleepless night of non-stop drinking, being a sad fuck was no excuse not to greet them in kind. “In meetings hearts beat closer!” He called.
“In blood!” the response came, not quite in unison.
As he climbed the creaking steps to the porch, a har caught him by the arm.
“Jasper, you look like shit, har.” This was Envie, who desperately wanted to be Jasper’s new chesnari. He was a slight, tan blond who let salt water dry in his hair so he could tease it and pile it high on his head. Though his words were flippant, his blue eyes were full of concern.
He was cute, very cute, and it seemed like he really cared. Jasper wasn’t ready. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be ready.
“Thanks,” he said sardonically, shaking off the hand.
Envie looked stricken, as if genuinely afraid he’d said something unforgivable. Jasper felt bad, but could barely muster the energy to soothe the young har’s hurt feelings. The best he could manage was a placating squeeze on the shoulder and the offer of a light for the cigarette tucked behind Envie’s multiply pierced ear.
“Where’s Angel?” Jasper demanded.
“I think he’s in the greenhouse,” somehar responded. “Want I should get him for you?”
“Naw,” Jasper said absently. “I’ll go to him.”
The greenhouse was cobbled together from looted windows and plastic sheeting. It was ugly, but it did its job. Inside it stayed warm and humid enough for the Brujeros to grow several crops—principally marijuana, which they could trade for virtually anything they needed, but also certain vegetables. There was an experimental batch of Japanese indigo germinating, and a small henna tree growing in a pot. The Brujeros were working quite seriously on their hair-dye problem.
Angel, the phyle’s hienama, was busily tending to the weed. He was stocky for a har, broad of shoulder, hip and face. He wore his thick, glossy black hair in two braids. His hands were beautiful and square, and he always had dirt under his nails. He was a natural earth witch. Jasper had known him since they were human schoolboys cutting class to get stoned, read tarot and listen to music about the Devil.
He straightened up when he saw Jasper. “Did you do it?” he asked without preamble. The two of them always spoke like this, beginning all their conversations in the middle, picking up wherever they’d left off before.
“Yeah.” Jasper untied the bandana from around his head and used it to mop his brow. He was already sweating. “Can we talk somewhere else?”
Angel cast a regretful look at his plant babies, but followed Jasper outside. They went around the back of the greenhouse, by the creek, and hunkered down on rocks and logs facing each other. Angel had been packing a pipe with his grubby, clever fingers. He offered it to Jasper now. Jasper, still feeling regret over the mushrooms, made a face and shook his head. He just wanted to feel normal for a little while.
Angel shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He thoughtfully blew smoke rings while Jasper told him about his night—most of it, anyway. The phylarch was a little sparing on the more embarrassing details. It didn’t matter. They knew each other well, and Angel could’ve read between the lines even had he not been an adept psychic.
When Jasper came to the part about Magda looking at him, Angel interrupted.
“That is very strange. I need to ask the stones.”
He pulled a small, threadbare velvet pouch from his skirt pocket. Jasper, used to this process, was already kicking away pebbles and pine needles to clear an open space on the ground. What Angel did with the stones was a mystery to all other hara, a personal system of geomancy that was utterly unique to him and opaque to others. He had been developing his method of stone-casting since before he was incepted. Nor was it strictly accurate to call them stones—of the seventeen small objects that formed Angel’s magical language, most were rocks of some kind, there were also marbles, bits of sea glass, a couple of many-sided dice and even a tiny plastic dinosaur. Angel rolled them all out of the bag and into his two cupped palms. He shook them, muttered to them, blew on them, and then cast them on the earth.
“Huh,” he said after a moment spent studying the pattern. “That’s fucked up.”
“What do you see?” Jasper asked.
Angel sucked contemplatively on his pipe. “Honestly not a lot. I think the ethers are janky. It definitely looks like someone has you on the brain. He’s coming back.”
“Magda?” Jasper felt cold all over.
Angel nodded slowly. “Could be someone else,” he said carefully. “I guess. It’s definitely someone with history, someone you thought you were done with.”
“But that doesn’t make sense,” Jasper said. “Magda’s dead.”
“If this is about him, he’s not dead enough,” Angel said. He pointed at three stones which together formed a triangle. “See this arrow? That’s him, and he’s headed right for you.”
It was, indeed, pointing at Jasper where he stood. He shifted uncomfortably.
“This har… is he coming with numbers or alone?”
Angel nodded approval of a good question. He studied the stones for another moment and then, seemingly unable to determine this detail from the current spread, gathered them up and recast them.
“It’s just gonna be him and you,” the hienama said. “There you are, just two in the middle.”
“That’s good,” Jasper said softly. “I don’t want anyhar else getting hurt.”
Angel laid a hand on his shoulder. “I hear you. We can’t stand to lose any more Brujeros. But I also don’t want you facing this alone.” His voice was warm with compassion. “Remember we are all here for you, Jasper. Even if fate catches you on your own—which unfortunately, I think it will—we are behind you. We will be here through it and when it’s over.”
Jasper was glad for these words of support. Angel was one of the few hara he could be vulnerable with. He turned to his friend, tears in his eyes, and they embraced. Angel smelled like pot and patchouli and perspiration, the smell of a friend that hadn’t changed much in all the years he’d known him.
“I thought it was over,” Jasper muttered against Angel’s shirt. “I wish it was over.”
Angel’s eyes were distant, staring over Jasper’s shoulder and off into the redwoods, seeing ghosts.
“I know, corazon,” he murmured. “I know.”
CHAPTER ONE: RED WALD
Six months earlier, in another gray dawn, two tousled hara walked back from the redwood circle smelling of campfire and aruna. They walked fast and purposefully down the old road, strangely distant for a pair of lovers who had so clearly been recently in each other’s clutches. They did not touch, or even look at each other. In fact, they walked so far apart that you could’ve ridden a horse between them. Tense silence reigned in the woods. It felt like the world was holding its breath.
“We have to hurry,” Gunner said.
Jasper nodded grimly. “I know.”
The sky was getting lighter. The pair quickened their pace back towards the lodge.
A flight of birds suddenly took off from the treetops, screeching across the sky. Jasper halted and held up his hand for silence. Gunner, cocking his head, heard it too. A low, steady rumble, like distant thunder, getting closer.
“Is that…”
“Drums,” Jasper said. “War drums of the Kakkahaar.” Dread settled in the pit of his stomach like a leaden lump. “This is good,” he heard himself saying, despite what he felt. “They announce their coming. Maybe this works in the desert. I think here they will regret warning us.” Coming to a quick decision, he turned to Gunner. “Get everyhar out. Take them to the caves. Bring all the weapons and supplies you can carry, but move fast. Leave me just seven hara.”
Gunner balked. “You can’t hold the lodge with seven hara!”
“I’m not going to,” Jasper shot back. At the look of fury and consternation on Gunner’s face, he snapped, “I know what I’m doing. Don’t question me Gunner, just do it!”
Gunner nodded, eyes wide with barely suppressed panic, but Jasper could see the cogs working in his head. The two broke into a sprint. The rest of their trip back to the lodge was a mad, headlong dash.
They arrived, winded. Gunner immediately dashed to the gong that served as their dinner bell and commenced banging on it. Within moments, hara began to emerge from the lodge, rubbing sleep from their eyes. Per Jasper’s instructions, they had all slept in the main building that night, rather than dispersing as usual to their tent cabins. They had also been ordered to abstain from heavy drinking and partying, and to keep their weapons close. Most appeared to have followed these commands.
Jasper scanned them quickly as they streamed out of the building, doing a head count, assessing who was fresh and rested and who was hung over. “I want Rintrah, Gilly, Jordi, Splint, Killer, Cruz and Paz. We’re covering the retreat. The rest of you, you’re with Gunner and Angel, and you’re going to the caves. Take only what you really need.”
A mutinous mutter rose up from the Brujeros. Jasper held up his hand for silence.
“I can see you’re not impressed with retreating. I don’t have a lot of time to explain, but you deserve to know what’s in my mind. We’re badly outnumbered, but these hara don’t need to know that. They also don’t know the land, and are used to fighting in the open desert. If we let them take the lodge, they’ll stick close to it. We’ll always know where they are, and they’ll have no idea how to find us. We’ll use guerilla tactics—strike from the trees, hide our numbers. If we do that, we can win this.”
As Jasper spoke, faces that had appeared angry, fearful or confused began to smooth, and many even broke into knowing grins. The phylarch’s shoulders relaxed slightly. He was now confident, at least, that he wouldn’t have an uprising on his hands.
“Angel, your job is to shield the retreat with your mind. The Kakkahaar are good psychs and witches. If they can count you, or figure out where you’re going, this plan’s shot. Do your best to hide, and we’ll try to keep them too distracted to look for you.”
Angel nodded grimly. His dark eyes were wide with fear, but his jaw was set. He wouldn’t crack. The rest of the hara appeared similarly scared yet braced. Only Gunner looked unconvinced, a dangerous mixture of doubt and resentment clouding his face. Seeing this, Jasper came to a quick decision.
“Anything happens to me, Angel’s in charge. Gunner, I changed my mind, you’re with me.”
Gunner’s sulky look changed to one of outright fury. He expected to be named successor, and didn’t understand the sudden change in plan. Jasper didn’t have time to soothe him. As Gunner opened his mouth to say something probably regrettable, the phylarch cut him off. “You’re the best shot. We need you here to buy us time.”
Even Gunner couldn’t argue with that, though it was clear he wanted to. It made perfect tactical sense.
“I guess I am the one who said you shouldn’t do this with only seven hara,” he admitted, with a wry, unfelt smile.
“Exactly,” Jasper said lightly, “I took your excellent advice.” He turned back to the rest of the Brujeros and raised his voice. “Now move, move, move! You heard those drums. They’re coming!”
Magda rode at the head of his phyle. The pale light of early dawn filtered green through the branches. The hooves of their horses rang loud against the crumbling asphalt of the decrepit road, in counter-rhythm to the drums.
“I saw a red wald,” Magda muttered under his breath.
“What?” asked Albion, his second in command.
Magda laughed softly. He hadn’t been conscious of speaking aloud.
“I saw a red wald,” he repeated. “I went into the red wald and saw a red church. I went into the red church and saw a red altar. On the red altar there was a red book. I opened the red book and found a red knife. I picked up the red knife and I cut the red bread…”
Albion looked baffled. “What in Ag’s name is that?”
“An old human spell,” Magda explained. “The sort my family from back East used to use.”
Albion’s brow creased. “Does it work?” he asked.
Magda shrugged. “I’ve no idea. I think it was meant to cure ague.”
“Ague?”
“A human disease.”
Albion shook his head. Like all of Magda’s hara, he respected his phylarch, but he didn’t remotely understand him. Magda was strange even for a Kakkahaar. His particular esoteric preoccupations were alien even to his fellow adepts. His magic did not dance with the desert winds. Instead it seemed to travel subterranean tunnels, or chase comet tails through outer space.
“What’s a wald?” Albion finally asked.
“A forest,” Magda said. “This one is red.”
That, Albion understood.
“It is,” he agreed, glancing at the rusty bark of the huge trees. “And it shall be redder.”
He thought Magda would be pleased with him, for solving the riddle. Instead, the phylarch pursed his lips with distaste, as if saying so much was gauche. On his pale horse he looked like the fairytale princess who’d been white as snow, red as blood and black as ebony. But his eyes were not those of an innocent, and he held his head high like a wicked queen.
He thought of the beautiful har who he might soon kill. It was a pity that Jasper did not want him. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. He was sure of it. This was not what he’d seen in his dreams. In his dreams, he’d sat in the green shade and gold light of the woods, and held a child with Jasper’s eyes in his arms. For a mystic like Magda, that dream was far more real than what was happening now, and always would remain so.
“Yes,” he said aloud, “A pity about the blood.”
Albion shuddered. He wondered, for the thousandth time, what had possessed him, and the rest of them, to follow such an obviously mad har to lands unknown. But there was something about Magda’s insanity that commanded attention, compelled obedience. His visions had a strange clarity, and his disjointed words possessed the ring of truth.
“We’re getting close,” said the phylarch of the Nox, and kicked his horse into a trot. Albion applied his heels to his mount as well. The phyle sped up behind them, as the drums adjusted to a quicker beat. The rhythm was nearly deafening, shaking the leaves. The drums seemed to pound in everyhar’s chest, hijacking their heartbeats. For those who could sense it, the stench of blood was already on the air.
Angel’s party was away. They’d slipped down into the streambed, crouching low to let the banks hide them. The sound of the water would muffle their footsteps, and if the Nox had dogs, it would kill their scent. If all went well, they could follow that stream right to the cave mouth, unseen, unheard, untraceable.
Jasper and Gunner crouched on the roof of the lodge, along with Gilly and Paz. The others were downstairs and inside. Jasper had instructed them to tear a single board out of each window, so that they could fire from within like medieval archers through the arrow-loops of castle walls. Anything they could carry had been bundled into the packs on their backs. What could not be carried had been destroyed. They might be ceding their base to Magda, but there was no reason to allow him to benefit from their stock of provisions.
For this operation, Jasper had selected his hara carefully. Those who stayed with him were the biggest, the strongest, the scariest, the most ouana-prevalent from among the Brujeros—or at least, the most ouana-looking. They were good shots, good at hand-to-hand, able to carry heavy loads and move fast: commando-types. Not only would they have to hold off the Nox for at least an hour, they’d have to take the long way around to join the others at the caves, so as to shake off any pursuers and avoid leading them back to the rest of the phyle. It was a tough job, and it needed the toughest hara.
He glanced at Gunner. His chesnari had his crossbow slung across his back and a rifle in his hands. For this battle, he’d brought out the rare and precious weapon which had given him his name. Because ammo was not always easy to acquire, the rifle was reserved for special occasions. This was one.
Jasper bit his lip involuntarily. Gunner looked particularly sexy like this, armed to the teeth, draped in ammo belts, lying prone along the rooftop with the rifle against his shoulder. All his muscles were tensed, including his pert ass. Jasper involuntarily flashed back on the night before, when they’d tried to make a baby, and felt momentarily dizzy with lust. Was a new life growing in him even now? He had no idea. Focus.
Gunner may have caught some of these thoughts, because he flicked his eyes sideways and cast Jasper a crooked grin. “Hey,” he said, “Imagine how hard we’ll roon tonight, after we get through this.”
Gilly and Paz laughed. So did Jasper.
“Lucky har,” Gilly said. He was lying on his stomach across the roof from them, his crossbow pointing east while Gunner faced north. The drums sounded like they were approaching from the northeast, but Paz had eyes on the southwest anyway, in case the Nox were smarter than Jasper thought and pulling a fake-out with the drums while another division of their phyle approached silently from the opposite direction. Paz had a long bow. He couldn’t lie flat, so he knelt, using the brick chimney for partial cover. Jasper sat in the middle of the roof, his legs crossed, trying to compose himself for meditation. Magic would be his primary weapon.
“Hey,” Jasper said lightly, “If we get through this alive, I’ll do you all.”
He regretted his comment a moment later, as it surprised some dangerously raucous laughter from his fellows. Their hilarity was quickly suppressed as they remembered not to give away their position. They lapsed into tense silence.
The drums were drawing nearer. Jasper closed his eyes and began a fourfold pattern of breathing.
Remember, he told his hara through mind-touch, We need to take out as many of them as we can with our first shots. After that, they’ll know where we are, so aim good.
He could feel that his hara heard him, sensed their increased focus and deepening resolve. This was good. He’d done his duty as a phylarch. Now began his duty as a shaman.
His spirit rose from his body, drifting up into the astral. He hovered, invisible, a good ten feet above the roof, and cast his psychic senses outward. He couldn’t find Angel and the others—good. Angel’s mind-shield must be strong indeed, if even his best friend and bloodson couldn’t feel him.
Jasper rose up higher, reaching out. He could feel the Nox approaching. They weren’t bothering to mask their presence. Their souls danced among the trees like bright flames, pulsing in time to the beat of their drums. Their spirits were strong, well-trained. Each and every one of them was an adept. At their head was a flame brighter and stronger than the others, which burned a cold, pale green. Magda.
Jasper’s heart quailed. He knew he was strong, and so was Angel, but the rest of his hara knew little about using their powers. These Kakkahaar lived and breathed magic.
Even as Jasper’s astral form hovered over them, circling like a bird, he felt himself noticed. The green flame flared up and twisted skywards, rearing like a snake. It lunged at him, snapping. Jasper flung up a barrier, just in time, and fled back to his body.
You have to try to shield your minds, he thought at his hara in a panic. Even though you don’t know how. I’ll teach you. Pretend you are not there. Pretend you are a wall or part of the roof. Imagine it. Focus on it, or they will see you.
He felt the confusion and fear of his hara, but he stayed with them, beaming as much calm and focus as he could lend into their minds, helping them with their visualizations. When he felt their presences begin to dwindle from even his own astral radar, the flames of their souls to dim in his sight, he drew back into the center of himself. Now he concentrated on casting a pall of shadows over the building and the surrounding area. Dark, dark. It should be hard even for the seers of the Nox to penetrate. They think they’re the night? I’ll give them night.
He remembered the wildfire, some years ago. How thick the smoke had become, blocking out the sun. If darkness could have form, the smoke was it. Jasper drew in a deep breath, calling on power from the trees, trying to tap their memories of the burning. These redwoods were ancient, they had stood through that fire and many another, green through it all. They knew all about smoke. At first it was hard to tap their power, until he visualized it like sap. Then it was easy. He let the magic of the trees flow into him like xylem and out of him as billowing clouds of astral darkness, settling over the whole of the clearing.
Magda reined up when he saw the lodge through the trees.
With his inner eye he’d glimpsed the intruder, the soul of a har who soared like a raven. It had escaped him, but he’d seen its path of retreat. Tracking this had allowed him to lead his hara more swiftly to the lair of the Brujeros. But now that they were close, he could suddenly see nothing. Oh, his mundane vision was fine. The lodge was perfectly visible through the trees, standing sun-dappled in the middle of the decrepit parking lot. But his astral sight perceived nohar, not the gleam of a single soul.
“I’m blind,” he said to Albion. His voice was childlike, confused.
Albion had not been bothering to monitor the ethers. He had assumed taking down the Brujeros would be all too easy. Now, he reached out with his mind.
“There’s nohar here,” he said, surprised.
Magda’s horse danced nervously in place as the Nox phylarch hesitated. “Maybe they’re hiding,” he mused. “Lying in wait, with tricks and traps.”
Albion lifted the pair of binoculars that hung around his neck and peered through them.
“Nonsense,” he said, lowering them again. “They’ve simply fled.”
Magda let the air hiss out through his clenched teeth. “I am not so certain.”
“They have no caste training at all,” Albion argued. “They couldn’t conceal themselves from us.”
“True,” Magda admitted, “But there is power in their phylarch.”
Albion was growing annoyed. Coming west had been Magda’s idea in the first place. This mad har had convinced them all to leave their acting archon, Lianvis. Magda had railed feverishly against alleged magical practices that were utterly depraved, hopelessly corrupt. He’d declared Lianvis to be lost in the abyss, his pyramid profaned, and insisted that their archon was nothing but “the excrements of the old Aeon.” Albion had no idea what that was supposed to mean. Probably neither did any of the others, but it had sounded bad, and Magda’s promise of a new life sheltered by the lush shade of ancient trees had seemed appealing. More to the point, Magda had promised freedom to any slave of the Kakkahaar who came along. So they’d followed Magda for hundreds of miles, adepts and aralids, losing many of their own along the way, finally arriving in the promised land to find naught but a handful of hara between them and their paradise.
Albion had run out of patience. He was sick of wandering, sick of waiting.
“That’s bullshit,” he said crisply. His voice was pitched loud enough for the rest of the phyle to hear him. “You just liked the look of him. He’s nothing special, Magda, and there’s nobody here.”
There was stirring among the troops, and muttering. Their interest was piqued. What was the hold up at the front of the line? Had Magda lost his nerve? Albion, sensing their attention, grew bolder.
“Why are you hesitating? Afraid of a handful of ill-trained pups?”
Magda’s cold eyes glinted. He fixed Albion with a serpentine stare. He’d not expected mutiny today, though he’d known it would come eventually. Fortunately for him, he saw a handy way to solve the dilemma.
“Albion,” he said in a sweet voice, but one that still carried, “It sounds like you want to take point. How very nice of you to volunteer. By all means, lead the way.” He flicked a contemptuous glance over the rest of his troops. “Any of you who think he’s talking sense, feel free to go with him.”
Albion paled. Magda steadily held his gaze, a smile playing about his scarlet lips. I called your bluff, Albion, he said in mind touch. You’re going to look awfully silly if you don’t call mine.
In a moment, Albion stiffed his spine, and applied his heels to his horse’s flanks. He trotted forward into the clearing. A handful of others followed him—not many, but more than Magda liked to see. He sighed in mild disappointment, and absent-mindedly petted his mount’s mane while he waited, with interest, for the inevitable.
Gunner’s trigger-finger tensed as the first har rode into the clearing, and his barrel swung to aim.
The conversation between Magda and Albion had taken place out of earshot, but Jasper had managed to follow it psychically. He tried to use mind-touch to tell his hara to hold their fire. They needed all of the Nox within range, not just a half dozen! But it was too late. Gunner saw his shot and took it. The report shattered the silence of the clearing, and Jasper hung his head in despair.
Albion’s head exploded. Blood, brains, shards of skull, and skeins of long white hair flew everywhere.
In the next few seconds, several more of the mutineers slumped from their horses, arrows and crossbow quarrels embedded in throats, eyes, and chests. Their mounts screamed, reared, and bolted, charging off through the trees.
Magda knew he shouldn’t enjoy watching his own hara murdered, but he couldn’t deny it was somewhat satisfying.
“Poetic justice,” he muttered under his breath. He raised his voice. “And that’s why I wanted to hang back. Questioning me, you see, is its own reward.” He scanned the faces of his hara quickly, sizing them up before choosing one. “Ariel. Come here.”
The young har kicked his horse and rode up. Magda dismounted, and Ariel followed suit. They stood face to face, staring at each other silently as their mounts nervously stamped and whickered. Ariel was tall, tan and sandy-haired, a generic Kakkahaar beauty in the mold of Lianvis. He was a strong adept, a good soldier, and had a decent head on his shoulders. He would do.
Magda cracked a grin—a deeply unsettling expression on his death-mask of a face.
“Are you ambitious?” He asked.
Ariel lifted his chin, and gave his phylarch look for look. “Yes,” he answered frankly.
“Do you want to be Albion?”
Ariel didn’t look towards the mass of meat and bone lying some fifty feet away from them in the clearing. “No,” he said.
Magda laughed. “Not too ambitious, then. Just the right amount.” He took Ariel’s hand in a cold, bony grip. “Congratulations,” he said. “You are my new second.”
Ariel didn’t blink. He’d been ready for this.
“Yes, phylarch,” he said smoothly. “Your orders?”
Magda’s smile grew even nastier.
“Grissecon,” he said. “Are you capable?”
To his credit, Ariel barely flinched. He was generally ouana. He knew that Magda, despite his feminine appearance, was as well. Ariel did not relish the passive role. But he would do what must be done for his advancement.
“Yes, phylarch,” he said.
Magda read the thoughts that passed through his head, and laughed again. “Don’t be scared,” he purred, “I can be quite versatile.”
He was already beginning to peel out of his robe, shrugging the sleeves off his shoulders and then sliding it all down his waist, his legs, until he stepped out bare. His flesh was as pale as bleached bone, and looked nearly as thin and hard. The ranks of the Kakkahaar reflexively spread out, forming a protective circle to shield the working, the warriors facing outward to fend off physical threats, the best adepts facing in to focus their energy on the ritual.
Ariel swallowed nervously, causing his residual Adam’s apple to bob. “To what end this grissecon, Tiahaar?” Despite his reservations, he was rapidly shedding his clothes as well, revealing flesh as sleek and golden as Magda’s was white and emaciated.
Magda stepped forward, and placed his hand on Ariel’s chest. His fingers were like the claws of the reaper. He smelled like funeral incense and rich, dark earth. His green eyes glittered under their darkened lids.
“There are snipers, concealed by magic,” Magda said. “We must tear off their veils.”
With startling strength, he shoved Ariel to the ground and mounted him, straddling his waist. Ariel’s ouana-lim had already emerged and stiffened, somewhat to his surprise. He’d never consciously desired Magda, but the phylarch did have a sort of strange, witchy charm. Anyway, he supposed, everyhar wanted to stick it to their leader. Who wouldn’t fuck power if given a chance?
Magda’s soume-lam had opened like a wet, dewy rose. It was nearly as red as his gash of a mouth. He crouched over Ariel like a succubus, teeth flashing in a scimitar grin. His lank hair fell forward, whipping against Ariel’s face, as he lowered himself onto the waiting stem of flesh, and let it pierce him.
Ariel cried out in ecstasy. Magda might be hard and cold without, but he was all softness and warmth within. Blinded by bliss, he reached out, groping for Magda, wanting to touch him, but the phylarch seized his wrists and pinned him to the ground.
“Focus,” he hissed. “Rend the veil with me.”
His mouth covered Ariel’s, his tongue filled it with a flood of dark tastes—coffee and chocolate and blood. Their breaths began to mingle. Ariel saw in his mind what Magda wanted him to see—the astral view of the clearing, dark and hazy, as if filled with smoke.
We will be a wind, Magda told him in mind touch.
Rapture crackled through Ariel’s body, adrenaline pumped through his veins. Yes, he thought back, exhilarated. I understand perfectly.
He felt Magda’s fierce excitement rising in response to his own, manic, almost feverish. He thrust his hips down, impaling himself upon Ariel, at the same time, exhaling into his mouth. Ariel saw the astral smoke waver, as if buffeted by a puff of wind, and again as he breathed out into Magda. The pleasure was almost unendurable. They were a complete circuit, the power that flowed between them building with every thrust, with every panted gasp into each other. Surely this wind would shake the trees. It did not, not even on the astral plane, but the smoke was being shredded to ribbons, dispersing more and more swiftly with every passing moment, until Magda threw up his head and uttered a cry of feral passion. His insides gripped Ariel in convulsive spasms, wringing his ecstasy out with his own, two orgasms blending into a single ferocious climax which blasted the last of the darkness from the clearing.
Dimly, Ariel heard the pounding of booted feet and horses’ hooves as the Kakkahaar charged, rushing past them into the clearing. He could not move, only lie there limp, sweaty and exhausted on the pine needles blanketing the ground. Magda had collapsed on top of him, black hair shrouding both of their faces. He, too, lay still for a few moments before raising himself on his arms to stare down at Ariel.
Ariel grinned up, dizzy with bliss. “We did it,” he said.
Magda laughed. “We’re hardly done, there’s still a battle to fight.” With a glint in his eye, he added, “Roll over, now. It’s my turn.”
Jasper held on for as long as he could. He clung to his cover of astral darkness like a child with a blanket he imagines will protect him from monsters. But the fiend’s claws shredded it, dispersing his magic, leaving him and his hara horribly exposed.
It’s over, he thought. He should have felt fear or despair at the realization, but instead he just felt numb.
Rintrah, Jordi, Splint, Killer, Cruz! He called upon his hara hiding in the lodge below. Try to get out through the back door. We’ll cover you.
He could feel their reluctance, their consternation—but also their obedience. Gilly, Paz and Gunner, up on the roof with him, received the mind-touch as well, and understood. Their resolve was grim. They knew they were unlikely to make it down. Their task was to get off as many shots as possible before they were taken, alive or dead.
As the Nox poured into the clearing, Gunner was quick with his trigger as ever, firing off shot after shot and reloading with shocking alacrity. Paz and Gilly were also quick with their bows, though not quite as impressive. The best weapon had been given to the best marksman.
Jasper drew on the last reserves of his strength to throw up a magical shield. It wouldn’t block bullets or arrows—he had not the energy left for that—but it would hopefully protect them from psychic attacks. As he ascended to astral and threw up his energetic wall, he saw he was just in time—black tendrils of sticky, corrosive energy were snaking up towards him and his hara. The assaults were coming from every direction, rising up from the ranks of the Nox below. The Nox were smart. Most of them had already crowded under the eaves, out of shooting range. Magic was what they were best at, and they were hitting back with it while a few of them worked on breaking down the lodge door. Once they were inside, they’d be up on the roof within seconds.
Despair sapped Jasper’s vigor, making his shield waver. One of the black tendrils broke through, and snaked around his astral wrist. He could barely muster the strength to break away.
“Gunner, Gilly, Paz,” he heard himself say aloud, in a hoarse voice, “Aim for that door. I want the first six hara who come through it fucking dead.”
“Aye aye cap’n,” Gunner said.
The old nickname made Jasper smile. When he’d first been incepted, Gunner ran around insisting that being Uigenna was like being a land pirate “with pussies instead of peg legs.” He’d started calling Jasper “captain” and it had stuck. Hearing the pet name again, a tiny flame of hope kindled in his heart.
“Best mate,” he murmured fondly back.
Gunner moved up beside him, and wrapped an arm around Jasper’s shoulders while keeping his rifle trained on the door. Jasper leaned against him, grateful for the comfort, drawing on Gunner’s strength to keep his shield going just a minute longer.
They could hear the footsteps coming up the stairs. Jasper felt Gunner’s body tense like a coiled spring. He could sense Paz and Gilly’s alertness as well—Gilly’s quarrel notched, Paz’s taut, quivering bowstring.
Pounding on the door. It was not strong. It would soon break. Jasper kept his eyes closed. It was the best way to maintain the shield. It also meant he didn’t have to see the enemy bursting through.
Sound of wood shattering. Instead of a hail of bullets, just two shots. No screams. Whoever was down had never seen it coming. Sick dread filled Jasper’s heart.
Gunner’s rifle was shoved under his chin just as he opened his eyes.
Paz and Gilly had fallen. Young scrawny hara in punk rock clothes slumped aesthetically against a brick wall spattered with red. You could almost assume it was spray paint.
Jasper had never understood the expression ‘burst into tears’ before, but he did now. He was instantly heaving with sobs, his face streaming. He shook with grief, howled with it. In that moment, any thought of maintaining his dignity as a phylarch could not have been further from his mind. The loss was too shocking, the pain too awful.
Out of the dark aperture of the door stepped Magda, emerging from the shadows like a vampire from a crypt. Framed between the corpses of Jasper’s two dead friends, he was an awful apparition, an archetypal image from a nightmare.
“Let me go.” It was Gunner’s voice, Jasper realized dimly. He could hardly hear it above his own sobs. His erstwhile chesnari still gripped him tightly around the neck, holding him in a headlock with the gun pressed beneath his chin. The bullet would travel straight up through the head, to exit the crown chakra, a burst of light and blood as the spirit flies away… Stop it. Stop! You’re hysterical.
“Let me go,” Gunner said again, “Or the phylarch dies. I know you want him for some reason. He can tell you where the rest of the hara went, for one thing. He’s a good lay, for another.”
Jasper’s moans of grief turned seamlessly into a scream of fury. He clawed at Gunner’s arm, tried to bite it. Gunner jabbed the gun muzzle under his jaw with bruising force.
“Shut it, bitch. You think I won’t kill you?”
“You already killed me,” Jasper gasped through his tears. “You killed my heart.” He was mortified by his own words. They were so vulnerable, so stupid. But his pain was too immense. He could not stop himself. He was shattered. Let the world see.
Magda’s eyes tracked between their two faces. Their expression was unreadable, but they were quite wide, showing white all the way around.
“Very well,” he said to Gunner. “I accept your bargain. Give me the phylarch, and you may go in peace.”
Gunner did not let go of Jasper.
“I want a guarantee,” he said wildly.
“You get no guarantee,” Magda’s voice was cold, and dripping with contempt. “Don’t assume I want either of you alive that badly.”
After a moment, Gunner shoved Jasper forward. He stumbled and fell, scraping his palms raw as he caught himself. He stayed there, head down, shoulders heaving, still shaking with sorrow and fury.
“Go then,” Magda said. “Har of no tribe. You are unthrist. The Kakkahaar would never take you, and you are now neither Uigenna nor Brujero. Isn’t that right, Jasper?”
Jasper was slightly surprised to be so addressed, though little could reach him in his paroxysm of anguish. “Yes,” he managed, “You are stripped of all rank and banished from our lands.” He got the formal words out fairly clearly before succumbing to choking sobs again. He had caught sight of Paz’s booted foot and jacketed arm, the words ‘die young’ scrawled on leather with white paint. A hand-rolled cigarette partially protruded from a pocket. Tattoos on dead fingers. It overwhelmed him.
“You hear that, Gunner?” The words were deadly soft and cold. “You are no one. You are nothing. Don’t let sunrise find you within fifty miles. Incidentally, that is the range of my mind-touch. I shall know.”
With what felt like a colossal effort, Jasper turned his head to look up at Gunner. He stood with his back to the sun, silhouetted against a white sky. His face looked blank. It registered neither grief, guilt, nor shame, just a sort of stunned idiocy. That was Jasper’s last sight of Gunner before he turned and vaulted over the edge of the roof, escaping onto the eaves below. From thence, the drop to the ground was easy. Fifteen feet or so. The bastard probably wouldn’t even sprain an ankle.
“Jasper.” He looked up to see Magda standing over him, extending a hand to help him to his feet. He disdained it. He stood up, weary and shaking, all on his own. His tears, for now, seemed to have run dry.
He held out his wrists.
“What’s this?” Magda asked, darkly amused.
“Bind me,” Jasper said.
Magda’s eyebrows lifted—at least, Jasper thought they did, though of course he hardly had any. His forehead creased in the proper way, anyhow. “Is that really necessary?”
“I’m your prisoner,” Jasper snapped. “Let’s not pretend otherwise.”
Magda stepped closer, black robes swishing. He stood eye to eye with Jasper.
“Would you like me to bind you?” The words were spoken blandly, conspicuously absent of sexual suggestion. That somehow made them even more lewd.
Jasper flushed and looked away. He could not speak. Yes, he realized, he did want it. The way he wanted it was not fetishistic, but perhaps nevertheless perverse. He simply could not handle walking down those stairs unrestrained, as if of his own free will.
“Have it your way,” Magda sighed. He removed the tie of his outer robe, causing it to fall open and expose a little bit more of his scrawny chest. Jasper gasped in surprise as Magda grabbed his wrist and deftly spun him around, yanking his arms behind his back.
“If I’m going to do this,” Magda hissed in his ear, “I’m going to do it properly. Hands tied in front is next to useless.”
Jasper shuddered involuntarily as Magda’s breath hit his neck. The pleasure it stirred in him was repulsive. He remained docile as Magda bound his hands securely behind him.
“I’ll need to perform last rites for my hara,” Jasper said.
Magda nodded grimly. “As will I. Not to put too fine a point on it, Jasper, but you only lost two today.”
“That’s right. And you didn’t even kill them.” A bitter smile curved Jasper’s lips. He should not relish death, but it was a cold comfort to remember how bravely Paz and Gilly had fought, how many throats their arrows had found. “How many did we take with us, Magda?”
Magda growled under his breath, and Jasper thought he would not answer. But after a moment, he relented. “You have a right to console yourself with that knowledge. As of now we are not entirely certain, but there are eight at least dead, probably twice that number injured.”
Was it consolation? Jasper did not know. He allowed Magda to shepherd him past his dead, through the door, and down the staircase into the gloom.