T'aakshi

The pleasant weather did not last. By the end of the second day, the snows and swirling winds whipped had even soured the twins’ mood. The relentless snow had soaked their clothes and boots through, and the cold had settled into their bones. By the third morning, T’aakshi could hardly feel his own hands and feet. Their fire no longer warmed them enough, and days of eating scraps had left them all at breaking point. 

Still, they dragged themselves forward through the continuing blizzard, despite the pain, and T’aakshi tried to ignore the fact that this entire detour was a gamble with their lives on the line. He was growing less and less sure that, if they could not find the lake or their attempts at fishing were unsuccessful, they could make it back before they starved.

Ahead of him, barely visible through the snow, T’aallin’s silhouette suddenly drew to a halt. His heart sank. If the older hunter had lost the trail, or remembered poorly, they were done. He hauled himself forward through the snow at a renewed pace, more out of fear than any real energy, and drew up beside T’aallin.

The man had stopped, and was scratching his head, staring at a pair of dog-sized fallen rocks, one leaning on the other at an angle. 

“Have we lost the trail?” he asked, raising his voice to be heard above the rush of wind.

“No, lad. We’re right on it, in so far as I can remember. I’m just not sure which way it is from here.”

“Oh, look,” Jiro called out. “The old man’s having memory problems. If only we had seen that coming.”

The rest of the group was pulling level with them, Jiro leading the way, his arms huddled around his chest for warmth. His face wore a bitter scowl, accentuated by sharp cheekbones that hadn’t been so visible a few days prior. T’aakshi winced. The good cheer had run out, hunger and exhaustion and anxiety all poking holes in their supply until it had vanished like water from a leaky bucket. 

Now tension seemed to gnaw away at the already frayed ties binding them together as a cohesive unit, and T’aakshi could see the first signs that the party might be close to crumbling. Something needed to be done. He knew what that something was—they needed food, and fast—but that was now out of his hands. He had thrown those dice already. T’aakshi just had to hope the roll was a good one.

“That’s a lot of mouth for somebody who had fuck-all in the way of ideas when we needed them—where was that lip then, boy?” T’aallin called back, not even turning to face the younger man.

T’aakshi saw Jiro tense, his fists clenching impulsively, and stepped in front of the scarred younger man faster than he thought himself capable of. He placed a firm hand on his shoulder, making sure Jiro couldn’t push any further forward.

“Enough now, Jiro. We’re all frustrated and angry, but this was my call. If you need to be angry, that’s fine—but don’t direct it at somebody who is just doing what I’ve asked.”

Jiro held his eyes, visibly trying to maintain the rush of anger he had been feeling, but it was already beginning to flicker and die. He slumped and step back, slapping T’aakshi’s arm away from him with a muttered, “whatever.”

T’aakshi frowned after him as he stormed to the back of their group, giving the rest of the party as wide a berth as he could manage. That was probably as well as that had gone, all things considered, but it still left a sour taste in his mouth.

“Shi, lad—I think I have the bastard.”

And just like that, a burst of adrenaline surged through him, the thought of food filling him with a fire he had not felt for days.

“Seriously?”

“Aye, lad. Just needed a moment to knock it loose, is all. Shame Jiro’s tucked his tail and scurried away—rubbing it in the little pissant’s face would have been a delight—” he paused, grin renewed as though the thought of this was more revitalising than the food itself, and nodded into the dim gloom of the Waste, snow still flurrying madly. “Shall we?”

And so they set off after the old man once more, boots crunching doggedly across wind-swept snow-plains. For the first time in days, T’aallin was moving with a purpose again, determined strides covering ground at a pace that even T’aakshi struggled to match.

An hour passed, and just as his screaming muscles seemed ready to give out, T’aallin yelled something from up ahead, jabbing a gloved hand wildly at a pile of rocks. T’aakshi peered across at it as he trudged toward the old man, eyebrows knitted. They were river-stone smooth; oval things, each dressed in a thick layer of white and stacked one on top of the other, almost too-perfectly even.

T’aallin walked a few paces past it and dropped to his knees, using his hands to scrape back heaps of snow, digging down as fast as his arms would allow him.

“Yes!” he cried as T’aakshi drew near. “This is it!”

His heart soared, and he scrambled over the remaining ground to see where T’aallin had dug down, half-skidding, half-falling to the floor beside him. The sight of lake-ice peeking out at the bottom of the hole filled him with enough relief T’aakshi worried he might burst.

The twins arrived first, whooping as they saw what he did, and turning and hugging each other as though they’d not seen the other for years. S’aari and Jiro were only a half-step behind. 

“You lucky bastard,” Jiro cried, unable to hold back a bubble of relieved laughter.

T’aallin smirked back at him. “Not luck, boy. Skill, and a shitload of experience.”

“Now we just have to get through the bloody ice,” S’aari put in.

Her words proved prophetic. They set their blubber-oil fire alight on the ice first, hoping it would at least begin the thawing process. In this temperature, though, it did little, and they were soon attempting to use spear points and daggers to gouge away at it like ants trying to dig through stone—with about the same results.

Triumph hot in their bloods cooled to chill fear that having come all this way, they would not get through the ice for even a chance at fish. Hota was the last of them still trying with his spear-point, scraping away at the ice fruitlessly, but in the end, even his bottomless well of enthusiasm had turned bone-dry.

T’aakshi knew what must be done, but just the thought of it made his hands tremble, and his insides curl in on themselves. He was still yet to channel in front of the party. He had barely so much as attempted to access the power of Self since that time on the lake, just before he’d got his summons. Gods, had it really only been a few weeks since then? He felt as though he’d aged by a good decade since the beast had invaded his mind as he tried to channel his magic.

Thoughts of the beast’s predatory amber stare swirled around his mind alongside imaginings of the scorn his group with which his group would react when they realised that his ability to use his powers had become as inconsistent as it had, when they realised the power they had put all their faith in was as likely to fail in the critical moment as succeed.

Louder than any of those thoughts, however, were those about what would happen to his party if he failed. The idea of attempting to channel here and now filled him with a black dread. Yet, it had to be done. They needed through that ice, and couldn’t afford to blunt their weapons digging through when there was another way.

“Let me try,” he said, resignation lacing his voice. “I think I can burn through it.”

They all stopped and fell silent. Of those in his party, only T’aallin had actually seen him use Self before, seen the things he could do with it. He was the first to step back from the ice, his movement almost reverent, and the others quickly followed suit, each of them gazing at him intently.

He licked his lips, palms suddenly sweaty. His power failing now didn’t bear thinking about, but it seemed to be all he could think about. The humiliation and shame. The disappointment. The consequences. Kneeling down in front of the exposed ice, he reached out his hands. His heart rattled against his chest cavity so fiercely, he was sure the others could hear it, even across the bitter screeching of the wind. His hands shook, and he closed his eyes. 

The ancient dark leather of his memory-book sprang to life in the darkness of his mind, complicated, spiral patterns carved across its surface, the etchings somehow seeming older and more mysterious than the gnarled leather itself. His focus shifted to a bronze latch, and it snapped apart. The book fell open, its yellowed pages fanning out in an arc through the air.

Anger for fire. No mild annoyance either—the ice was thick, and he would need to hold self for some time to keep it thawed. Fortunately, he had just the thing. The book snapped to the page, the memory dancing across his mind, sun-bright and vibrant. It was the memory of S’aana of the Inari-da denying him his father’s memories. Nice and recent, the anger still raw. The colour here always caught him off guard. It was vivid. The cerulean blue of S’aana’s robes seemed violent, the gold and silver jewellery gleaming like stars. 

Watching it, he noticed details he hadn’t before. How carefully the others watched him—like an artisan deciding on the best tool for a particular job. How a red-raw scar peeked out from the high neck of S’aana’s robe, a vicious streak that stretched right across her throat. 

He focused on the anger he’d been feeling, singled it out from everything else until all he could feel was the searing rush of it running through his veins, and he burned it. Flame tore through the images in his mind, burning away the colour and leaving the memory grey and empty. 

This part of him, the anger that he felt here, he chiseled away like a chunk of stone from a statue, and Self, with all its glorious sensation, rushed to fill the void it left behind. No beast. Only power. Power enough that a triumphant laugh escaped his lips before he could help himself.

His focus returned to the ice, to their need for food. T’aakshi held out his hand, and like he did at the lake, unleashed a stream of white-hot fire. It was stronger than he intended, and he knitted his brows, trying to maintain control of it. Apparently, he had underestimated how angry he had been.

Still, stronger flame was not necessarily a bad thing—as long as he remained in control of it. The ice gave way with startling speed, the tongues of flame carving through it as though it were fresh-fallen snow rather than decade-frozen ice.

He could see, past the steam and fire, the unfrozen water, bubbling and rippling beneath a final layer of ice, and his heart soared momentarily, before a sickeningly familiar wrongness hit him like a club. His vision flared white, and he felt the Self he held churn inside him, his control over it failing. He fell back into the snow behind him, desperately trying to keep the fire still pouring forth from him aimed at the ice, half-blind.

Then, through the blinding white, he saw the beast’s cold, black eyes and their sudden awareness of his presence, and his control of the power slipped. He felt the searing heat spread up his hands, into his arms as the flame he was producing flared and died, knocking him back into the snow.

He saw and felt no more.