Chapter 10 – Masaan

Masaan twitched. His bow was strung tight, the knocked arrow pressed close to his face, ready to be fired. But he could not shoot. The snow fox was targeted and close enough Masaan was almost certain not to miss. He had always been a good shot with the bow. Yet something stayed his hand. It was not the lingering whisper of Ah’shakan’s voice. Her teachings had led him to the Feet of the Earth, so that he ran light as the wind careening over the ice, but her words offered nothing to explain the revulsion which rose now inside him.

The fox has done no harm. It lives in peace. I cannot kill it.

But I must eat.

Within Masaan a new, wholly uncertain battle was being waged. Beginning with the coming of the Feet, as he thought of the strange new power he possessed to run without leaving footprints in the snow, as though he had no weight, the revulsion at the thought of killing animals for food had grown until the taste of meat turned Masaan’s stomach. Unfortunately the Masterlands were no place for the gathering of honey, baking of cakes, or picking of fruits and nuts. If such things did grow in the icy fastness of the Masterland they did so near the coasts and in places closely guarded by the Primer’s uruks. Masaan would find none of those things in the white wilds.

But I must eat.

That is a lie.

Masaan recoiled from the words inside his own thoughts. It seemed an alien concept, so strange and fey as to be magic of the darkest sort. How was it possible to live and not eat? Yet somehow, Masaan knew he could do exactly this. His body would eventually need food, but he could survive on snow melt and leaves for many, many moons. Of that he was now as certain as he was of his lightness of feet.

Perhaps it is part of the lost heritage?

But how can food be part of the lie?

Not food, uruko. Though it was his own thoughts responding to him, they did so with Ah’shakan’s lecturing tone. Killing. That is part of the Lie. In order to find the Lost completely, you must kill only to save life, not to sustain it. Even then you must know each death will stain you.

Ah’shakan could not have known any of these things, much less told them to Masaan, yet he knew them. Knew them to be entirely true. Other things remained to be discovered, Masaan knew this also, keenly. He could almost feel the burning need to know, to understand so fully what it meant to be not Lost that could have no concept of being Lost, it would seem him as some nefarious Other.

That must be how they saw us, at first. Before the Lie was revealed to them.

That the Not Lost had known for many thousands of years about the Lie, had picked it apart and spread it among their Wise so effectively it was canon had been something Ah’shakan had known and taught Masaan. She had known this from the scrap of text which formed the basis of her teachings, of the teachings of Truth. If only Ah’shakan could have lived, she would have known what to do now. It was she who should have carried the Truth forward. Not me.

Cease being stupid, uruko! Ah’shakan’s voice chided Masaan, within his own head. You live and you have the Truth! It grows within you by the day. When you are ready it will shine forth from you and be light to all those who have gone dark.

Masaan wished often in the days since the Blue Hold had been destroyed he had managed a way to keep Ah’shakan by his side. Together they would have been able to envelop the Truth in ways far beyond anything he could do alone. But as she was gone. Burned in sacrifice to save us all. Masaan would need to seek help elsewhere. There were, of course, others who knew of the Fire Book, others who knew Truth, but Masaan had no way of finding them. Ah’shakan had not been willing to tell him who they might be, and Masaan suspected this was in part because she no longer knew. Many, many risings of the Etched Face have passed since she exiled herself to the Blue Hold, perhaps all she knew had died and she did not wish to acknowledge it. But...there is a different option.

Masaan pulled his bow down, replaced his arrow in the quiver and picked up his knockstone staff. Allowing the Feet to lift him over the snow he ran lightly, at a pace he could maintain for days, if not weeks, though he would require food at some point. I will jump that ice crevasse when it looms. There was a forest ahead, of looming pine trees, full of animals like the snow fox, surely some of which must feast on berries and vegetation. The thought buoyed Masaan. Either way he had weeks of running if he was to reach past the Lakash Mountains, travel across the Nethe Plain, the Central Valley, and eventually to the Elharm – where legend and his memory could collide.

The sound of his great-marm’s cackling voice rang in his mind. See out there, yarn uruko? Past them hills, between them peaks? That’s the Elharm, uruko. That’s where them Ice Demons live, where they drag little urukos who don’t mind their betters!

His great-marm had likely not truly believed in the existence of Ice Demons, nor had any inkling what they truly were. But that had not stopped the urukana from implanting the image in his imagination.

Maybe that’s all it ever was. Fantasy.

The Truth within Masaan vibrated. It spoke to him thus – in cues of the body and heart, the mind and soul. No. It is real. They are real. You must find them again.

It was to Elharm Masaan journeyed. But first he had to pass through the Kairnen Forest, a vast, if occasionally narrow, expanse of pine and evergreen trees which grew at the feet of the Lakash. The woodland was the source of most of the wood used by the tribes of the Uruk, as well as prime hunting grounds for the animals they prized for the skins and meat. Most Urukshane ate only meat or animal take, milks and blood, marrow, brains, and fat. Most of which came from the domesticated versions of animals which roamed wild in Kairnen, animals kept in pens inside the cities in the Central Valley, or herds outside it. The Central Valley, unlike the rest of the Master Lands had weather and seasons. The only place in the Master Lands were a time without some form of ice snow existed in the Central Valley. This was the center of power for the Urukshane. This is where the Darksun lived, where she had her great temple to the Master, where she and her coterie of marms plotted the Return as part of the Prophecies of the Blue.

Fools. To think they will sail the tribes over the Ocean and live again in Middle Earta simply because Prophecies say they will? As if the ships they build can manage such feats!

Such thoughts occupied Masaan as he traversed the Kairnen. As he avoided all signs of other Urukshane. Days turned into weeks by the time he crossed the Central Valley, using the northern most edge of the Lakash, where few Urukshane kept permanent settlements, though herd upon herd of the hardy ice goat the Urukshane ate wandered the scrabbly hills.

Others live here, and eventually they will notice my presence.

Being near to herds however did allow Masaan to find sources of food the Truth would allow him to consume. Various plants in the Central Valley born fruit and things the ice goat ate were edible, if not entirely palatable. But as Masaan did most of his traveling at night it was difficult and time consuming to be sure he was not eating any of the numerous poisonous varieties of growing things. Still, he managed.

When the western side of the Lakash loomed, Masaan breathed in the air of his childhood home again for the first time since he had left to become a Peace Days. None of it felt the same. I have shed more than one skin since then, I am nothing of that uruko. But still some of him remains. There was a sense of wonder at the place, at seeing things from eyes new to memories of things long known. Certainly a majesty existed here, an immensity to the land and the mountains which even the most violent and belligerent Urukshane could not fail to notice. This fact, among many others, also made it a place with a large population.

I cannot linger here. Even though I wish to do so.

Masaan did look out over the little dell where his family kept a herd of ice goats in pens around a house. The place where he had been born, where he had grown up. It held none of the largeness he remembered. It was hardly more than a shack made of logs surrounded by grassy tundra. Still, it called to him. Masaan used the Truth to push the longing away. I must go forward, not back. I must follow the Truth where it leads. I must.

So I shall.

More days passed without Masaan encountering any other Urukshane, only the herds and empty shepherd’s stables. It was in a narrow valley between two massive peaks of the Lakash, Shwarg and Hielo, when that changed. Along a winding defile deep in the shadow of Hielo, Masaan heard the dolorous humming he remembered from childhood, a shepherd’s lullaby to the herd. Masaan stilled himself and knew he had a decision to make. Like or not the herd would soon know he was present and might react to his strange scent, which would alert the shepherd. Masaan could move as silently over the thick grass of the valley as he could over snow, his feet no longer left trace of his passing.

I need not be seen...

But a startled bleat ate that thought up. The humming lullaby immediately ceased. A guttural voice said, “Who’s thar?”

The rustic nature of the voice’s tone was clear, though, gender was not. In the plains of the valleys just as many females as males were shepherds, many of the former choosing lives of solitude, rather than being forced to be brood sows before they could choose a career in government, the military, or as a marm. The option to become a shepherd was relatively new, Masaan could remember as a child his great-marm commenting that such things had not happened when she was young.

“Them urukas need to tend other flocks, and let the urukos do the outsize things. Bad enough urukas is forced to bear sons for the army before they has any right to bear an uruk of they own. Downright shameful.”

Masaan made a snap decision. Partly he was tired of being alone, the surrounding countryside of his youth made him whimsical and nostalgic, a need to be present with some other presented itself. A need he had not felt since Ah’shakan had drawn the blood promise from him to carry forward the Truth, no matter what.

Ah’shakan, how I miss you.

Masaan purposefully allowed the Feet of the Earth to dwindle, so his heavy body crunched the small growth underneath him. The sound would hardly have been of note had one of the herd not bleated to his scent. Certainly it sounded nothing like the heft of full grown Urukshane tromping about in the twilight before evening fell. It took moments only to locate the place where the shepherd had camped.

Had.

A poorly covered fire pit still glimmered with clods of dirt thrown over the ashes. Next to the fire an indentation existed roughly in the shape of an uruk. A small uruk. Masaan stepped lightly around the now-abandoned campsite, noticing from the corner of his vision when two skreps wandered into the clearing, looked at him, and proceeded to bleat before wandering off in search of cud to chew. Masaan knelt next to the indentation, pulled up two blades of grass, brought them to his nose and drew in the scent.

Woodsmoke. Leather. Skrep fat. Powdered agate. Sour skrep milk. Sweat. Hemp.

All together the scents added up to only one possibility: an uruka. Masaan dropped the blades of grass and laid himself, light as the drifting breeze, atop the indentation, to search for signs of passing feet. It was readily apparent in the broken blades of grass and tiny bits of twine she had ran off. Shepherds did not abandon their herds in the Lakash, not for the sound of an intruder. Not unless they were already afraid for some other reason. Masaan pressed his face closer to the grass, to determine which direction the frightened uruka had fled, so he might track her, and ease her fears. Unfortunately he could not make out a direction, the shape of her sandals left doubt, the only surety he could have was that she did not flee in direction from which he himself had come. Masaan pressed his palms down to push himself back up when the whistle of wood through the air alert him. His reflexes, trained and honed to a crystalline perfection during his time as a Peace Days reacted before his active thought could tell him to do so. Masaan threw his shoulder downward and rolled away from the path of the swing.

A grunt and curse let him know his ploy had succeeded. The uruka had overbalanced herself with her swing, so sure had she been she would land her blow, and fallen to the grass. Several skrep bleated in response. Masaan leapt to his feet, pressing his shoulders into the ground first for leverage and upward thrust, kicking his feet up and out before he righted himself. And there she was.

A small, young thing. The uruka cringed at him, a wild-eyed fear in her glance as she studied his larger, imposing shape. Something was feral about her, in the twist of her mouth, in the shape of her canines, which thrust nearly half an inch above her lower lip. She would have been beautiful, in an exotic, rustic fashion, is she were not also horribly dirty. Her hair was lank and slick with skrep fat and gather with twine into one massive braid. Her brow was slightly studded with protuberances above the eyebrows, a physical trait Masaan had never before seen on an uruka. Old paintings showed some uruka with such facial shapes, but they had been considered low-breed for so long it was thought all traces had been bred out. The fact the uruka’s crown would barely reach Masaan’s shoulders told him even more. She is half low-breed, or more. The combination of features allowed for little else – there were short urukas, urukas with protuberances, and those with canines which rose above the lower lip, but never all together, and never with the overall look of a child who had never known the joy of a warm bath.

She was likely abandoned as girl.

“I mean you no harm. I am a Peace Days.” Masaan. “My name is Ma...”

He didn’t get the rest of his name out before she swung her staff at him again. This time she caught him off guard enough that the tip of the wooden stick grazed his face, producing a slight burning sensation. Masaan swore. It was anathema among the Peace Days to allow the touch of a weapon against flesh – whether the flesh be theirs or another’s. No Urukshane shall bleed for our lust! No Urukshane shall lust for our blood! The mantra was used in the early part of training as a Peace Days, as a way of reminding new recruits of the strength of their new vows.

You shall not kill thy own.

You shall not be killed by thy own.

You shall see violence in others as weapon, but not a solution.

You shall lust for peace above all.

You shall know peace in your blood, or you shall die.

Masaan wondered if this uruka had any idea at all what a Peace Days was, if she could even understand the language he spoke. He recalled her humming before, none of which had contained words. Her feral appearance struck him again. Stretching his thoughts further, Masaan realized just how distant he was from any other settlements, almost as if by design this herd was kept away from other uruk settlements. More, the fact the herd reacted so quickly to a strange smell, was further proof. Skrep smell uruks all the time, unless the don’t. These clearly do not fear the smell, but they feared the strangeness. She stole the sires and bred them in secret, all to avoid other uruks. Why?

Masaan held both hands out in a gesture obviously meant to denote supplication, peace, and acceptance. But it had no affect on the uruka. She eyed him just as warily now as she had before. Her staff was held in a grip which showed she knew how to use the weapon, but the distance between her hands made that knowledge clearer – she was self-taught. The grip was too wide. A blow struck too hard with the grip and she would loose all ability to hold on to the weapon. Masaan had his knockstone staff strapped to his back, but he had not even thought of reaching for it. That would surely set the uruka to fighting for her life.

Instead, Masaan went to his knees and bowed his head, to pray. He sang the Forbidden Song, which Ah’shakan had whispered to him, teaching him the harmony by discreet taps of her staff as they walked across rocky ice the next day.

O Elbereth, Gilthoniel...

Masaan did not need to look up to realize the uruka had not taken the opportunity to charge him and slap the back of his head with her staff. She might even could have killed him, so exposed was his the back of his skull. Instead his finely honed hearing heard her rock back and forward on her heels, a sound which implied confusion. Masaan continued to pray and to sing. He had a passable voice and when inflected with the beauty of the Truth, the Forbidden Song gleamed like a star made into music. More sounds of feet on grass let him know the uruka had moved again. His sense of presence told him she was near. Masaan finished the song and looked up. There she was, staring down at him, a look of utter perplexity on her face, as though he were a skrep who could dance on two feet.

Next Chapter: Chapter 11 - Neldoreth