Eight 2: Chapter 30

“Is there something wrong, Zasha?” Aluali looked with concern at my bowl, which was still half full. “Do the dumplings not taste good?”

He’d made them with Bihei’s help, the two waking early to assemble the food from shredded smoked musk ox meat and acorn flour. The dumplings were served in a bowl of soup made from bones that’d been left to simmer overnight.

“They’re delicious,” I said. And it was true—the dumplings were rich and nourishing, full of umami.

I took another bite, and he smiled with relief. The quiet meal livened with talk of his and Billisha’s plans for the day. The moment my thoughts strayed and my spoon slowed, though, Aluali would glance my way. I needed a distraction to keep him from worrying about me.

“Actually, there is something you can help me with,” I said.

That got the kids’ attention right quick, and I explained my idea for a pair of animal-handling gloves studded with bone. Even as preoccupied as I was with what I’d learned from Borba’s dreams, it didn’t mean I was willing to put the rest of my plans on hold. I was still determined to catch a blynx.

Bihei showed me examples of the hides she had on hand, while the kids talked about cutting and shaving some of the uncooked musk ox bones down into small squares. I thought the bones were too thick, but the kids wanted to test them. They’d try it out, and if the ox bones didn’t work, they’d look into other options.

That made me smile. So enterprising, these children. They were thrilled when I told them I planned to stay a couple of extra days in the village.

Mornings in Voorhei always hummed with activity. The villagers fed their chickens and collected the eggs. Goats were milked and taken to pasture. Children ran to the wells for water, and their parents scolded them for spilling too much on the way back.

My own share of errands that morning was a bit more out-of-the ordinary, and took me towards the village center. I ran into Kesa’s team there. They had instructions to head out into the forest to scout for an advantageous location for the kalihchi bear’s hunt. Sure, the Albei team had a plan, but Voorhei’s lodge had its own way of doing things.

Today, it was Kesa’s team’s turn. Tomorrow, it would be Borba’s. And so on.

Thinking about Borba, I sighed. I hadn’t known Grunthen, so his murder didn’t mean much to me. Intellectually, I knew his death had been unjust, yet it was hard to feel much sympathy. By all accounts, the man was an egoist and a jerk.

Borba, on the other hand, was well-liked by everyone. His fellow hunters appreciated his willingness to work hard for the good of the lodge and the village. The only problem was that he wasn’t as talented as others—certainly not as talented as Grunthen.

I wondered… if the village had had the opportunity to trade out ordinary-but-decent Borba for element-touched-but-jerk Grunthen, would they? My suspicion was that the answer would be yes.

Talents meant a lot to the people of Voorhei. They drove people’s choice of profession, who they married, and their overall value to the community. With my outrageous number of talents, I benefited from this system, but I also recognized there were others who weren’t as lucky—people who were relegated to basic farm labor because of their mediocre talents.

In a way, Ghitha was a victim of this culture too. His family was prized for being Earth-Touched, but when he’d showed no signs of developing the talent, he’d been relegated to taking care of the household, even though he possessed talents that would’ve made him a decent hunter. If I recalled correctly, he had the Methodical, Soft-Walker, and Even-Tempered talents.

Yuki felt compelled to comment: Ghitha is a jerk too.

Yes, but justice shouldn’t depend on who we like and don’t like.

But it does, Yuki said. In your old world—

As an ideal, I said, interrupting. The ideal of justice.

But you don’t believe in blind justice, Yuki said. We’ve seen it in your memories.

That’s true, I said. Context matters, but context shouldn’t include things like likability or having things in common.

Yuki ruffled through my memories. What about a crime of passion? Like Borba killing Grunthen because of his role in Kiertie’s death? Is that context?

I shook my head. I’ve never been comfortable with the whole idea of crimes of passion. Seems to me it rewards a person for losing control.

So what context should justice have?

I walked through the village, mulling over Yuki’s question. The best example I can think of is an abused spouse killing their partner: when they can’t take it anymore and they don’t see any other way out. Or self-defense, that’s an obvious one.

This situation—Borba’s situation—is nothing like that, Yuki said.

“No,” I muttered aloud. “It’s not.”

Looking up, I noticed that we’d reached Ghitha’s house. Unlike the village’s longhouses, it was two stories tall and built from quarried stone. The double doors were white oak with brass handles, and there were green-tinted windows to let in the light.

I had been on my way to the village’s smithy but needed to detour by the house first. Whether I liked him or not, there was enough evidence to justify an investigation of his qi. No, I needed to call it what it was: an invasion of his body in order to eavesdrop on his thoughts.

I joined with Yuki as we walked past, admiring the house’s construction. The walls and windows would likely block our entry, and the quality of their workmanship was good. We noted the chimney, though, and the keyholes in the doors. Both should provide opportunities for ingress.

We stopped in the shadow of Ghitha’s neighbor’s house to leave a section of the uekisheile’s body behind. It stretched us thin; any more separations and we’d compromise the integrity of Yuki’s intelligence. Their current limit appeared to be one main body and three subsidiary bodies. There were now portions of us within Otwei and Borba, and soon to be Ghitha.

Yuki and Ollie/Eight unmerged, and I continued on my way to the smithy. Although, there was one more stop along the way: the village’s pyramid.

So you can’t go through walls? I asked.

It depends, Yuki said. If there are holes or cracks, our tendrils can squeeze through, or we can use our qi transformation. Otherwise, the intent of the walls blocks us.

How is that different from entering people? I asked. You don’t seem to have any problems with that.

Yuki’s qi swayed, the equivalent of shaking their head. It’s the same. If an animal is completely encased in their defense—with armor, fur, or carapace—then we’d have trouble entering into their qi space. Fortunately, most creatures need to breathe, eat, see, hear, reproduce, or defecate, so there are usually soft places to attack. The only difficulty is if an animal has powerful qi. In that case, it’s possible that they will resist even if it’s through a wound or soft spot.

The thought boggled me. I have a hard time imagining many creatures having more powerful qi than you.

There are, Yuki said with a shiver. The kalihchi bear, for example, when he first found the Red Room. He was too big to fit through the passage, but he pawed at the eilesheile to get what he could. We thought at the time that easy prey had come, but we were wrong. Very wrong. His qi rebuffed us, and he sent lightning into the room. So much of the eilesheile burned, it took months to recover them.

“And their parasitism didn’t affect him?” I asked, surprised.

Not as far as we could tell, Yuki said. The bear ate as much of the eilesheile as he could reach, yet appeared unaffected.

“And that’s why you were so afraid of his qi when we came across it in the forest.”

He visited often, Yuki said. Always trying to reach farther and farther into the Red Room. And then one day, he stopped.

I realized that I’d started speaking aloud, so I looked around to make sure no one had seen me. It was too easy to get distracted talking to Yuki. Fortunately, the villagers nearby were focused elsewhere. I started my climb up the pyramid steps. A couple were on their way down, and they nodded as they passed by.

I nodded back, then continued the conversation with Yuki. That’s because Woldec sealed the way in his fight against the bear.

Yes, the qi intent of the wall he built is very strong.

Not that it did him and Kiertie any good, I said.

No, but it saved the children, Akbash and Biaka, Yuki said. At least until a chliapp lion got them.

The pyramid was the tallest building in Voorhei. The style reminded me of the ruins at Chichen Itza in Yucatan. Similar to the Temple of Kukulkan there, the exterior of Voorhei’s pyramid consisted of a series of square terraces with a stairway up to the enclosure at the top.

From the top of the pyramid, I saw across the whole village, all the way to the walls. From the communal oven nearby came the smell of tamales. Well, they probably weren’t tamales exactly, but they sure smelled like it.

Down below, people went into and out of the Farmer’s Lodge. Meanwhile coming from the Hunter’s Lodge’s courtyard, I heard the thunk of arrows hitting their targets.

Inside the pyramid’s enclosure, a stone spiral staircase led down. It was just wide enough for one person, but was studded with alcoves for people to pass each other if necessary. The room at the bottom smelled of ozone. It was where the village’s dasekua, its life stone, was kept.

The life stone was the heart of Voorhei, the most sophisticated magical tool in the village. The villagers fed it their mana, and in return the stone produced blessings for everyone within its boundary—fertility, health, protection, growth, and a stronger connection to the World Spirit.

Around the room, ramps led to different parts of a larger underground complex: storage for food, a cistern for water, and shelter in case the village was overrun. The spirit examination room was also down here, as well as the world speaker’s residence.

I raised my hands, palms facing the life stone, and donated the equivalent of ten points of mana to the village. Most of the energy would be used to power the village’s blessings, but a portion would be set aside for emergencies.

I had asked Sheedi about it. Apparently, not every village could afford a life stone, but Voorhei was relatively wealthy. The spirits of the land were friendly for the most part, the city of Albei was close by, and several talented families lived here.

In many ways, I was quite lucky to have landed nearby. Well, surely luck had nothing to do with it.

Thank you, Diriktot, I thought.

Yes, thank you, Diriktot, Yuki said. For bringing Ollie/Eight to us.

The smiths—two husbands and a wife—worked the forge, while one of their sons measured me for new chainmail, a hauberk extending down to my knees. As fond as I was of the patchwork shirt I’d made in my first days in this world, it was time for an upgrade. The hunt for the King of the Forest was only four weeks away, and I needed to be ready. The price was an astounding five antaak, the equivalent of almost three years of peasant labor.

There was no way I had that much money, even after selling the bandit gear and trade goods to Ghitha, but Mumu agreed to lend me the rest. It was an investment, she’d said, in a money-making talisman named Eight. Well, given the riches the eilesheile represented, I didn’t blame her for thinking that way.

The smiths’ son was in charge of negotiating the price, and when things heated up between us, one of the fathers intervened. Fortunately, we were eventually able to reach a deal: the price would stay the same, however, the smiths would add a helm, a new spear, and a number of tools, including a shovel, a wood ax, two hammers, iron nails, two different saws, a plane, and an adze.

I’d expected to get a bump in my Barter skill from it being such a good deal, but no such luck. So, I handed over two antaak’s worth of coins, and told them they’d get the other three from Mumu directly—they knew she was good for it.

My old patchwork shirt and I had been through a lot together, and when the smith saw I was reluctant to part with it, he offered to include steel from it in the new armor. “We grow,” he said, “and so our tools should grow with us.” Apparently, he was as sentimental as I was.

Speaking of growth, part of the deal also included the sacrifice of silverlight from five deer to the new armor. That would be enough for the chainmail to reach Level 1.

Amazing stuff, silverlight. It helped any and everything become a better, stronger, purer, more powerful version of itself. I’d noticed the effect on my bow in the aftermath of the spirit journey to release my mana.

I’d killed a spirit tree monster along the way, and its silverlight had spilled over me and my bow, which is how I’d reached Level 1. My bow had too, although I didn’t know it at the time. All I’d noticed was that the bowstave and the draw had smoothed out.

According to the smith, there were two ways to enchant items. The city way involved rituals to etch magic runes into the item. The process was intricate, time-consuming, and required a lot of study. The village way was simpler—all one had to do was give silverlight to the item in question. Anyone could do it. They only had to be willing to sacrifice their own growth in exchange for the item’s growth.

For the record, we’d be buying the silverlight for the new mail from the Hunter’s Lodge. Also for the record, it was possible to grow powerful items by feeding them darklight. The hitch was that they’d be cursed, and the smith didn’t approve of the practice. He told me that he’d seen a cursed spear once and that had been enough for him to know that he’d never torture a weapon or set of armor that way. Ever.

Between the measurements, the story telling, and the negotiations, I was there for a good two hours. We also talked about ways to reduce the amount of noise the armor would make, and settled on running thin strips of hide between the links to keep them from clinking against each other.

By then, the other husband and wife were done with the work they’d been doing, so they invited me to a meal with the rest of their family. Commissioning a set of mail was a big deal, and they wanted to celebrate.

Afterward, stuffed full of braised goat, roasted blue potatoes, and greens, I waddled home.

I caught Bihei just as she was heading out to the fields after her lunch. The kids had run ahead, anxious to get their work done early so they could start on the animal-handling gloves. They’d left stew and dumplings for me, but I couldn’t eat another bite.

Bihei looked amused at my state, which made for a pleasant development. The shadows at the back of her eyes had started to dissipate—the young widow was becoming more settled the longer Billisha and Aluali stayed with her. She was, of course, still haunted by the loss of her spouses and children, but the weight of their deaths was counterbalanced by the new lives residing in her longhouse.

Well, I understood how bright Billisha and Aluali could be, and how they filled an empty space. I smiled, and Bihei smiled back, the expression reaching her eyes. She wished me well, and left for the fields with a wave.

I watched her go and marveled at people’s capacity to live on. I’d done it. Mostly. Bihei was starting to do it. Even Ghitha was doing it—the kalihchi bear hunt and the search for the Red Room were likely his way of moving forward.

The question of his involvement in Grunthen’s and Bindeise’s murders continued to niggle at me, pestering my thoughts no matter how much I tried to distract myself. I’d learn the answer tonight, though, once Yuki had a chance to infiltrate Ghitha’s house and invade his body. Any speculation before then would be useless.

So, I kept myself busy the best way I knew: training. I worked on my new spells in particular, and the footwork for the spear forms. Partway, Sheedi stopped by to arrange a visit to the Glen for the people who would be building the shrine.

Apparently, it was a family enterprise, and the family heads wanted to get the lay of the land first, as well as mark the trees they’d likely need for construction. Then, once the kalihchi bear hunt was complete and the forest hopefully more settled, the whole family would head out to fell the trees and begin construction. I’d do my part by liaising between them and Ikfael, and because of that Sheedi handed me an eltaak as the first installment on my wages.

Huzzah! I’m not broke anymore. Just fifty-nine more and I’ll be debt free.

After finishing her tea, Sheedi left, and I continued working up a heavy sweat in the afternoon heat. I started mixing spirit eyes into the steps—trying to overcome the disorientation without resorting to Dog’s Agility—and I noticed some of the village’s ghost dogs stopping by to watch. Ah, Bindeise sat on the ground nearby too. He was petting a couple of the dogs beside him.

I grabbed a towel to wipe my face and neck, moving slowly so that the world didn’t tilt too much around me. Well, it didn’t work—the world still spun—but I somehow managed in spite of it. I was able to walk back and forth across the garden without tripping or falling once. My body and senses were slowly, very slowly becoming accustomed to the extra sensory information that came with the land after my encounter with the Deer God.

I nearly tripped when a notification surprised me.

I’d gotten my first rank in Spirit Magic practicing the Grace spell, and here was the second gained quickly after. As for Spirit Arts—

Huzzah! Yuki said, interrupting, their qi bursting like fireworks.

Huzzah indeed, I said, smiling at their antics. And why not? It felt good to have the hard work I’d been doing recognized. Plus, given how the two skills increased at the same time, I now had evidence they were connected.

I looked over the rest of my Status and realized it’d been a while since the last time. I’d fallen out of the habit, because I no longer felt the need to fret over my ‘build’ like I had before. In fact, to call anything a build was misleading, since doing so implied picking from a series of predetermined skills and abilities for a specific character outcome. That just didn’t happen in this world. Instead, the Status merely reflected where I’d been investing my time and energy. It was descriptive rather than prescriptive.

Instead of trying to min-max my way through life, I was better off with teachers who could show me the way. The only real game-like choice to be made was where to apply the free attribute points whenever I leveled, and I was pretty sure that it was just a shortcut for directing silverlight within me.

From my conversations with Sheedi, Inleio, and Tegen, I’d learned that the level-up experience was similar for everyone, but that the particulars differed. A variety of senses were involved, but almost everyone also had a deep sense of accomplishment—a feeling of power spilling over and an innate understanding of how to direct that power toward where to grow next. That feeling was understood to be silverlight overflowing from the level-up and becoming available to be applied to the body, mind, or spirit.

I hadn’t sensed anything like that when I leveled, but that could’ve been because I had the phone acting as an intermediary. Or maybe it was because I hadn’t grown up paying attention to the internal signals from the World Spirit.

Still, I wouldn’t give up my phone for anything. While everyone had a general sense of their own Status, and it could be made somewhat visible through spirit readings, no one else had things laid out quite so clearly as they were for me. At least, I hadn’t heard of anyone with a talent or ability like it.

Hmm… choosing where to focus attribute points can impact milestones, which in turn can affect what talents a person develops. That’s actually pretty game-like. And a regular review of my Status is useful for charting my progress. I really should do it more often. I’ve just been so tired at the end of most days. Or distracted and preoccupied, although I’ve had good reasons. So, where do I stand now?

I’d gathered 823 silverlight to date, which meant I had another 1,427 to go until Level 4.

My Strength was in the process of increasing from 8 to 9, and the rest of my attributes appeared to be holding.

My improved relationship to Yuki was reflected in the condition Occupied (Evolving*). Evolving to what, we weren’t exactly sure.

The obvious next step was a full symbiotic relationship, but we didn’t know what that involved or the next steps to get there. After the missteps we’d taken with each other, though, we were okay with going slowly and figuring things out as we went.

As for my talents, Inleio and the village leadership would be stunned to know I had seven in total. They’d also likely think they’d lost their minds if they saw the full, hidden list of my skills, and not just the ones from my previous life, either.

My magical, survival, and language skills were rapidly developing. The only laggard had been my Spear Arts skill. After some quick early gains, I’d found that progress depended on burning the forms into muscle memory. That meant practice, practice, and more practice. But with everything I needed to train, I hadn’t been getting as much time as was required, even with my attempts at integrated martial arts.

Hmm… l should devote more time to sparring. Maybe I can head over to the lodge to see who’s around? Yes, let’s do that.

By the time I got back from training at the lodge, I was exhausted. A wet noodle. A bedraggled rat fished from the salty, sweaty ocean barely hanging on to his spear. Bihei and the kids met me at the door, and I swear they all sighed simultaneously, perfectly in time with each other.

They helped me clean up, fed me, and put me to bed. I didn’t sleep, though, no matter how much I wanted to. There was still work to be done.

The day had passed and night had fallen, so the villagers were all in their homes. The way was clear for the uekisheile outside of Ghitha’s house to move.