Far-Seer

But no. He would not give in to his fear. Afsan stepped to the Shrine’s opening, a door frame of shoulder blades. The chill wind whistled through the structure, an eerie, plaintive call, like the dying breaths of all those whose bones now surrounded him. He peered into corners in the purple twilight. Afsan’s backpack carried a gift—an astrolabe he had brought from Carno—but he didn’t know where to leave it.

“Hers is the white skull, at the front of the sphere.”

Afsan jumped, twisting at the apex of his leap. He hit the ground, claws extended, facing the intruder. A figure stepped from the shadow: bulky, with an ebony leather hunting tunic whipping against her body.

Afsan’s voice sounded hollow, even to himself. “Are you Dem-Pironto?”

The large dark figure silhouetted against the swiftly growing night did not reply.

“I’m looking for Dem-Pironto,” Afsan said again. His nostrils caught the intruder’s odor and he realized that this was a female. Her pheromones were different from any he’d ever detected. There was something about them—something that caused him to feel an edginess, a wariness. Afsan felt energized, even after the exhausting climb. He took off his backpack, grateful to be free of its weight. “I’ve brought a gift for Pironto,” he said, pulling at the gut ties. “No one would give me guidance as to what would be appropriate, but this object has much meaning to me, and to my intended profession.” Her eyes were on him, unblinking. Afsan wished she would speak, knew he was babbling. “It’s a device for measuring celestial angles,” he said, pulling an ornate object into view, a trio of freely spinning concentric brass rings. He held it out so she could see the polished metal, the fine care lavished on its manufacture.

“A hunter knows his or her course without mechanical aids.” The words were talon-sharp.

Afsan spluttered. “I—I’m sorry.” He tried to fathom her expression. “I meant no disrespect.” There was silence between them, silence except for the screaming wind. At last, Afsan said again, “Are you Dem-Pironto?”

The dark figure stepped sideways, blocking the exit arch. “Dem-Pironto is dead,” she said at last. “She died yestereven-day. She died so others could eat.”

Dem-Pironto, leader of the imperial hunt, dead? “How?” asked Afsan, curiosity getting the better of prudence.

“Gored, she was, by a triple hornface. An honorable passing for a hunter.”

“My gift—?”

“—is of little use to her now.”

Afsan sighed. He set the astrolabe on the rocky ground.

“Not there, eggling.” The female pointed, claw unsheathed, to the sphere of skulls. “Place it near her skull. Pironto’s is the white one, there, facing out from the middle.”

Afsan’s heart skipped a beat. The monstrous collection was wider than he was tall: two hundred skulls arranged in concentric spheres. Each skull was twice as long as it was high, with large eyeholes, gaping pre-orbital fenestrae halfway down the snout, and elliptical nares. The lower jaws consisted of separate left and right bones, able to split wide when swallowing. The muzzles were packed with serrated daggers.

Afsan always found skulls frightening: eyeless receptacles, the discarded canister of the mind. These skulls seemed to float a distance above the ground, each somehow not touching the ones near it. A support, then, he told himself, perhaps thin glass or crystal, invisible in this waning light. He reached a hand forward to feel the space between skulls, but jerked it back, deciding he’d rather not know if he was wrong.

“I’ve never seen such a place as this,” Afsan said aloud, his back to the stranger. He was grateful even for the sound of his own voice, something warm and alive interrupting the shrieking winds. “A structure made of bones.”

Skulls in the inner concentric spheres had darkened over great time to a deep brown, but the skull of the late Pironto was easy to spot: it was whiter than all the others.

Afsan stooped and placed the astrolabe on the ground beneath the overhanging bulge of the sphere of skulls, directly below Pironto’s snout. It disconcerted him as he rose to catch a glimpse of the brass rings of the astrolabe, an object he had cherished since childhood, through the gaping holes in her skull and the skulls beneath.

The stranger was silent for several heartbeats. “They are the bones of hunt leaders from the past,” she said at last. “Here rests the hunting spirit of each.”

He turned to face her. “Hunting spirits? I thought that was a myth.”

“You are so blind.” The stranger spread her,arms wide. “I hear them.” She closed her eyes. “Irb-Stark and Tol-Tipna. Sar-Klimsan the Scaly and Hoad-Malat. The smooth-skinned Klimsan and Tol-Catekt. And my predecessor, Dem-Pironto.”

Afsan swished his tail in comprehension. “You are the new hunt leader.”

“I am.” Her voice was pure glass. “Jal-Tetex is my name.”

“I cast a shadow in your presence.”