Far-Seer

It was late afternoon, the sun already bloated, purple, and low. When he’d started the climb, Afsan had been conscious of the background noises: the mating cries of shovelmouths pumped through their intricate crests; wingfingers shrieking as they scooped up lizards; ship’s bells and drums far off in the harbor. But the climb was arduous, and soon all other sounds were drowned out by the thudding of his heart.

The Hunter’s Shrine was atop a giant rock pile, fully as high as any of the Ch’mar volcanoes. But this cairn hadn’t been formed naturally. Legend had it that each of the Five Original Hunters—Lubal, Katoon, Hoog, Belbar, and Mekt—had brought one stone here for every successful kill throughout their lives. The priests of their sect had continued the practice thereafter. Of course, worship of the Five had all but vanished ever since the Prophet Larsk first gazed upon the Face of God, now some twelve generations ago, and so the pile did not continue to grow.

Which was fine by Afsan. It was far too high already. He clattered over slabs of stone. Some were ragged; others, smoothed by rain, by tilting and chafing together, or by the scouring of Quintaglio claws. His hands scrabbled for purchase, his feet dug in where possible. He moved quickly over precarious parts, the slabs shifting beneath his weight. Afsan hadn’t labored this hard in kilodays. That he wore a backpack didn’t help. The straps of shovelmouth hide cut into his shoulders.

Afsan wondered how many turned back before reaching the summit, still a dizzying height above him. And what of poor Dybo, chubby Dybo? Had he failed in the climb? Was he hiding somewhere, ashamed?

Afsan was above the low coastal hills that shielded Capital City from the continual east-to-west wind. Here, up high, the evidence for Land’s breakneck journey down the River was plain: the air bit into Afsan’s hide like needles of ice. He had hoped the breeze would cool him, for he was close to overheating, but instead it just made him more miserable.

Far above, canted at an angle, he could see the summit and, at its crest, the Hunter’s Shrine.

The Shrine, appearing small from this distance, was a stark frame, like a wooden building abandoned before completion. Afsan’s knuckles, shredded on the rocks, continued to find rough handholds to hoist himself higher still. For a long time the building seemed to grow no closer, but at last he was near enough to hear the wind shrieking through its gray members. With a final effort, Afsan scrabbled to the top of the rocky cairn.

In front of him the stones were scarred by a gridwork of shadows as the sun, swollen and dim, dipped behind the Shrine. The strange twisted girders were stained a deep purple in the waning light. Rising to a standing posture, Afsan shifted the weight of his pack and forced himself over the remaining distance to the Shrine.

He was exhausted, his breathing deep and ragged. To steady himself, he grabbed one of the beams that made up the Shrine, a short cylinder knobbed at each end. His nostrils were full of grit; his knuckles were bleeding; his knees were scraped, his tail likewise; chips had been knocked out of the chitinous sheaths that covered his clawbones.

The beam was hard and cool. It glinted in the fading light, apparently coated with resin. Afsan stood back a few paces to get a good look at the Shrine. It was by no means huge: twenty paces in length, half that in breadth, and perhaps twice his own height. The design was an eerie lattice, a twisted skeletal structure.

Skeletal. By the prophet’s claws, the thing was made of bone! Afsan staggered back, seeing the nightmare edifice with new eyes. Gnarled columns of a hundred vertebrae rose over his head. Femurs joined to form archways; ribs and assorted smaller bones traced out geometric shapes. Through the wide gaps between the bones, Afsan saw a large sphere of Quintaglio skulls at the center of the Shrine, empty eye sockets facing out in all directions.

His tail was swishing back and forth uncontrollably. Every instinct told him to run, to get away from this evil place, to scramble back down the tilting, clacking rocks to safety.

No.

No, he could not.

It was a test. It must be. The whole thing: the impossible climb, the terrifying building. A test, to eliminate those not fit for the rigors of the hunt, those too squeamish to face death.

And yet. And yet. And yet.

Afsan hadn’t been able to find anyone who had seen Dybo since he had headed out. Much of the ritual of the hunt was still based on the old worship of the Five Original Hunters, and priests of Lubal had been known for many a perversion, not the least among them cannibalism.