《Yggdrasil Weeps - A Scalarian Song》


 A Beautiful Day to Disturb

    It was a sunny day, bland and warm, the wind blowing in soft, fluttering gusts through the pristine fields of deep brown, late summer grain fields, and the sky blazed a light aquamarine blue below the atmosphere dome. The man lent against the haphazard stone walls that lined the thin dirt path that wound its twisty way through the fields, collapsed back with his legs sprawled out as he struggled for each wheezing breath.


    He was dressed in a long black duster, leather torso armor, and forest green leggings, and his right hand clutched desperately at the handle of the large, chipped and inelegant paladin¡¯s greatsword embedded halfway into the soil before him.


    His hair, an unnatural, obsidian shade of black that ate all the light that hit it and offered no shine or sheen of reflection, hung in a long queue down his back, trapped between the rough stone wall and his back.


    A second, thinner, longer and more beautiful sword rested through the meat of his upper chest, just above the right lung, bobbing slowly to the rhythm of labored breaths. His right arm hung limply against his side and blood dribbled and trickled in slow runnels down his still form, soaked and soaking into the fabric of his clothing.


    Despite the tranquil calm of the day, the scent of burnt flesh and decay hung off the man.


    The world¡¯s star climbed slowly towards the zenith of its path. Shadows sped closer, collapsed beneath their origin, then lengthen back out the other way.


    The man¡¯s breath eventually slowed and evened, and his head fell back to rest against the rubble wall.


    His eyes were closed and his whole body seemed to relax, muscles unbunching and tension leaking from around his eyes.


    Yet he still did not move, only breathed, the sword nestled tightly in his chest bobbing in silent rhythm to the rasping inhales and exhales.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Shadows stretched and time passed.


    An hour, then two.


    The world¡¯s star began its far descent, slow at first, hanging there for a moment above, as if to let all below bask in its glory. Then faster, as it began to fall, speeding its way towards the horizon.


    Too fast, the man groused to himself, his eyes still closed despite the slow relaxing of muscles. That was the problem with young worlds, he would have said had anyone been there to listen. Their days were never the right length. And these foreign stars. Never the right amount of light.


    He sighed, and tried to move, rocking himself to the side. Muscles seized and froze, complaining at the simple motion, and he fell back again, groaning in pain from between clenched teeth.


    Maybe a moment more, he told himself. His companion had stirred itself into a frenzy at the simple motion, its screaming and thrashing growing to a fevered pitch as it threw itself again and again against the bars of its prison.


    He ignored it, as he always did, always had done, and let his body relax back, working slowly though the large muscle groups, twitching and jerking them in small, practiced motions as he tried to work life back into a sore and battered body.


    Another half hour passed. The sun closed in towards the horizon. He sighed again and rocked his body, then in one heavy motion yanked against his sword¡¯s handle, throwing himself to his feet.


    He only half stumbled, righting himself back to grab at his sword¡¯s handle and worked it slowly from the soil¡¯s embrace.


    He took a moment then, face turned up in relaxed appreciation as he watched the rapid sunset. Far above, glittering in bright pink cotton-candy colors, invisible to mortal eyes but weighty and attention grabbing to his own Vision, the Spine of the World cut in out of deep space, wandering here and there, swirling and glittering and twirling in slow dance before cutting back out into deep space. He bowed his head a moment, giving the heavens their due, then turned to walk down the dirt footpath.


    Darkness set in quickly around the long dust coat disappearing down the path, sword held lightly to the side.


    Through it all, locked tightly against the side of his spirit in its barred cage, his companion screamed, its refrain of constant demands scratching against the scarred walls of his mind.

 Chapter 2 - YW

    Castor¡¯s job was easy, most of the time.


    It didn¡¯t make him wealthy, it wasn¡¯t a route to easy money, it didn¡¯t earn him any particular prestige with his mother and her knitting circle, and it didn¡¯t offer much power within the government of his tiny colony town.


    He was, at most, a glorified message board. It was easy though.


    He sat in his comfortable rocking chair, kept a side-eye on the incoming messages, and mostly did his crosswords. Or, redid old ones. There weren¡¯t any puzzle masters on Herotid to make new ones, and Castor couldn¡¯t right well solve a puzzle he had made himself, could he? He only had a couple hundred, smuggled in one way or another on a colony ship, and Castor spent his days workman-like cycling his way through copies before turning back to start again at the top of a new pile of new copies of the same old crosswords. He had gotten quite good at pretending he didn¡¯t know the answer, after a decade or two of practice.


    What Castor¡¯s job lacked in daily rigor, it made up for in stress and anxiety, when the incoming Alert boards started lighting up and blinking and strobing all red and angry with warnings. There was a reason that Castor, a mediocre and unambitious man, had so easily beat out the competition for the Liaison position. There was a reason that the Liaison¡¯s had the highest death rate of any job in a fairly well established township¡­


    It was on days like this where he paid for the long and easy months of light work¡­ When he sat, huddled in his dark, quiet office, eyes straining to watch the blinking screen, almost an hour after Third-week¡¯s third night of sleep should have started. Just waiting.


    Slayers of Beasts could be vicious and aggressive, snapping and lashing out at the littlest thing; especially to the mortal liasons responsible for giving them orders.


    They could just as easily be happy, cheerful, or easygoing, but most of the few Castor had had to meet were of the first kind. It never paid well to gamble with one¡¯s life, but even the most vicious Slayer could be handled, if treated properly. The truly unstable ones were never offered the job.


    Castor hadn¡¯t gotten a good read on this newest one, but the silent, harsh mien and angry aura had spelled out how bad of an idea annoying him might be.


    So, Castor didn''t risked it, staying huddling in the darkened hut, fingers tapping and dancing a nervous rhythm against his chair¡¯s arm. He would be here, ready to log and mark off the Slayer¡¯s job as done when the duster coated man returned.


    Better a few hours of sitting around anxious than a quick death for inconvenience.


    The alert had gone off Third-week¡¯s first morning, after the township¡¯s wellspring had sprung a leak. He had felt the Alert board¡¯s warning from almost a hundred yards away, walking up the cobblestone path that led to the small hut of his office. Malevolent spirits from beyond the Pale. Ancient things, far more powerful than any of the colonists.


    There was little he could do at that point but call for a Slayer and call the rest of the town in to bunker up inside the town¡¯s walls.


    If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    The Mayor had sealed the wellspring¡¯s crack rather quickly after all the hubbub, so there hadn''t been much risk of the beasts finding their way even to the town wall. Whatever beasts had noticed the leak and crept across the wards from the wildlands beyond the Pale wall had lost the scent and begun wandering through the farmlands, trying to find the source of the power they had felt. But the scent was lost and the town¡¯s walls were tall and strong. They were trapped within their own home now, but at no immediate threat from the wildland beasts.


    But the only way to open the farmlands back up for those who worked them was to call for a Slayer. That was when Castor got to shine. Oh what glory, to be allowed to serve as a Liaison. The rest of the town wasn''t in much risk from the beasts, but Slayers were a threat all their own, for all that they were supposedly human.


    He could only hope that this Slayer hadn¡¯t been too inconvenienced by whatever beasts he had to fight.


    Castor had felt it, early this morning, when the last of the invading beasts had died. The Alert board had lit up in quiet relief as the last foreign presence had been eradicated. But it had been almost five hours now, and the dark looking man who had responded to the Slayer¡¯s call had yet to return. He mightily hoped that one of the mythical warriors hadn¡¯t died, or, worse, gone missing under his watch. If the man had died, there was a chance the Impyriati might come investigating.


    He shivered lightly at the thought and leaned back in his chair, trying to breath deeply, trying to calm his mind. He had only seen an Impyriati once, at the ceremony for the crowning of the local governor, and was not excited about the though of interacting personally.


    When that hadn¡¯t worked after a good twenty minutes, he jerked into motion, reaching out to grab for a half-done, half-remembered crossword.


    It took his eyes a moment to adjust; sat there in the dark, staring down at the hand grasping his crossword.


    He couldn¡¯t see the paper.


    With a quiet giggle to himself, a little of his tension easing away at the absurdity of his mistake, he bounced to his feet, spinning around to reach out for the lightswitch over by the entrance.


    And froze.


    The door was half-way swung open, moving with a silent grace that it had never before possessed.


    A shadowed figure, outside, stared back at him.


    Castor gulped, desperately trying to deny the bile trying to surge back up his throat, and forced himself into motion, stumbling over himself to turn on the lights and pull out a chair and invite the man in and pull up all the after action reports and the half-completed forms and inquire politely towards the martial implement embedded through his chest¡­


    And all the while¡­


    His attention kept drifting to the Alert board¡¯s sensory arrays.


    It couldn¡¯t sense his guest. It hadn¡¯t when the man had come at first, but Castor had been too caught up in anxiety and fear and duty. Afterwards, sitting for the last two full sun-cycles, waiting for the man¡¯s return, with nothing else to think of¡­ the thought had kept worming its way into his attention.


    The Alert board, which could sense the strongest of beasts from beyond the Pale, could pinpoint the soul and spirit of every Slayer he had met; had even been able to read-out the exact strength of the Impyrial Magistrate that audited the town once a decade¡­ Simply failed to sense this darkness cloaked figure dressed in a beaten, old duster.


    An imperfect shroud, for a blank void of emptiness could be felt where the man sat, if the Alert board was well tuned to the exact position, but terrifying enough in its own right.


    He shivered a little, trying to hide it, as he rushed to get out the required paperwork.

 Chapter 3 - YW

    Kyo collapsed bonelessly into the plush guest chair, watching in fascination as the slightly rotund man babbled endlessly.


    The man still hadn¡¯t stopped speaking, darting from unintelligible questions to mumbled apology to whispered accusation and back to questions, spinning through the small hut, grabbing papers and tidying up and stuffing other papers away and moving odds and ends from here to there uselessly, going on endlessly, all without leaving space for a single response.


    It was almost awesome, in its own way, and Kyo might have let it go on, just to see how much breath the man had, if his burns weren¡¯t crunching and weeping so painfully.


    Those last few beasts, some type of bipedal, scaled, pack-hunting reptile species, had had a nasty bit of fire mastery, and the whole area around where his oldest sword, Sever-Kiri, rested through his chest had cooked and cracked, the skin shearing off in flakes of dead debris that had begun to gather uncomfortably around the waist of his shirt.


    ¡°Castor!¡± he interrupted, trying to soften the rough edge of his own voice, ¡°its Castor, right? Any chance your town¡¯s got a healer who can work with inforced flesh?¡±


    ¡°No? No! Certainly not. Not to the degree that I am sure Honored Slayer is working with¡­ Old Gretchen¡¯s got a bit of the touch with the herbs, if¡¯n you know as I mean. Swears to the World Tree she can make anything heal, eventually, but that¡¯s probably a slower method than a sword through the shoulder would ask for¡­ Although I¡¯m sure that Honored Guest knows better than me¡­ Always been a bit of an enjoyer of the forest¡¯s bounty, if you know what I mean, that one. In fact,¡± he said, starting to chuckle quietly as he went on in a rapid-fire pace, ¡°her daughter - married to the younger Hastor twin, - swears you can listen to her planning out fake disease diagnoses, quietly, to herself, once she gets to deep into her ¡®herbs¡¯ and cups, if Honored Cultivator knows what I mean¡­¡±


    His voice petered out, his gaze catching on Kyo¡¯s glare before sliding sulkily down to the screen in his lap, his voice going on again in a quieter ramble.


    ¡°Not that there''s anything wrong with any of that type of stuff, perfectly fine way to release the stresses of life, especially for such as a job as Honored Slayer¡¯s...¡±


    ¡°Please, call me Kyo,¡± Kyo interrupted hastily, trying to keep the other man on track, ¡°Can you look up for me where the closest cultivator¡¯s healer is? I¡¯m unused to this district¡¯s commercial offerings.¡±


    ¡°Oh!¡± Castor came back to life, his gaze popping up cheerful at the chance of new gossip, ¡°reassigned from somewhere, offworld, or from another hab dome maybe?¡±


    Kyo, stared at him a moment, then chucked his chin at the paper¡¯s in the Liaison¡¯s lap, waiting until the man turned back. Maybe bribing the man could make all this go faster.


    The other man turned down, chastised, but lit up again when the story started flowing, figuring out quickly that the gossip only kept coming while he filled out the forms. It could only serve Kyo well to form a good relationship with this excitable man. If nothing else, he seemed like he knew where to source some fun substances if things got too boring around here.


    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    ¡°From elsewhere on planet. I had been assigned at first to another colony world, more coreward along the Katarian Rift, and had spent almost half a contract, but came here on the offer of higher pay for higher risks some twenty years ago. Part of my negotiations was to move around¡­¡±


    ¡°Carihine, where the Impyrial Embassy resides, is supposed to have a cultivator¡¯s healer, though her information suggests that she specializes in holistic healing more than physical healing,¡± Castor interrupted, trying to be quiet.


    Kyo nodded and went on, ¡°...semi-regularly. I have been roadblocked for several years in my own personal advancement and am attempting to use this chance at service and mostly idle time to search within myself and the world around me for the structure and meaning to rebuild my path forward in progression.¡±


    ¡°Name?¡± Castor interrupted again.


    Kyo grimaced. ¡°Kyoumu Kage. Its a Taken Name, not a birth given name.¡± He paused for a moment and watched the other man from the corner of his vision, holding his breath for a moment as the man¡¯s wiremind stored and logged the information, imagining how the information must be flowing out through the ether, pinging through a million data-transfers, searching for a translation in the depths of some far distant MetilMind or server bank.


    He saw the confusion in the Liaison¡¯s eyes the moment the translation must have come back.


    Kyoumu Kage. It translated as something like the shadow of emptiness but apparently sounded ridiculous when said in the original language.


    The name, taken for himself some distant years ago, still grated against his nerves. He wished he hadn¡¯t been so dumb, so childish, with such an important decision. The dark companion imprisoned against his spirit writhed and squirmed in pleasure at his feelings of embarrassment and self-contempt.


    To be honest, that was the only reason he hadn¡¯t yet changed the name.


    He was too worried that that could be construed as giving into the ridicule of his companion, and that could easily cause backslide or lost ground in the constant battle that raged between the two of them for control of his thoughts and actions.


    Better to live with the embarrassment and childish self-recriminations, than to lose unnecessary ground in the constant internal war.


    Trying to ignore the other man¡¯s questioning side-glance, he went on with his story, hoping to speed up the papers.


    ¡°I lost a significant amount of my internal conviction and Intent some years ago, in an act that the Impyrium deemed as worthy of acknowledgement, and have decided that the path of service is my best bet for reconstituting my Being more in line with my current Mind. It has been a long, slow struggle to climb back from the edge of the pit of despair, but these green new lands and warm, equatorial climes have already begun to work wonders on my nerves.¡±


    Castor made a soft sound at that, asking some question or other about the beasts he had had fought, then about the worlds that he had served as Slayer before coming here.


    The last hour or two of night passed pleasantly in easy, if a bit intrusive, conversation, and it was almost morning by the time he was rising, wrapping his coat back around his shoulders, settling the blade of Sever-Kiri where it hung through the meat of his shoulder, and picked the weight of Verlassen, his other sword, from against the arm of his chair.


    He had just turned to exit when Castor called one last question to him, ¡°Oh! Do you need the timesheets for the trains to Carihine?¡±


    ¡°No,¡± the Slayer called back over his shoulder, pushing out into the darkness of the pre-dawn light. ¡°I¡¯ll walk. It will do these old bones good. Who knows, maybe a beast or something else blocking the roads will give me a chance to stretch on the way.¡±

 Chapter 4 - YW

    The road to Carihine, or, more accurately, the wagon-path, disappeared slowly out from beneath Kyo¡¯s feet.


    It was not that he was being lazy, or even unhurried, only that in the last twenty to thirty years of his Slayer¡¯s contract he had begun to truly enjoy the slow, easy moments of life.


    A small bit of the world¡¯s energy, spinning in through the vacuum-pressure of his shattered Being, clarified in the remains of his meridians, was being used to power the Dense Pressure of Glacial Passage technique he had only recently regained use of, - after many years of effort and extensive modification to be sure, but finally, finally, it was his again. But the technique was far more a combat movement form, not well suited to long distance travel, and his progress along the wooded and almost overgrown path could be measured in almost mortal speeds.


    Not that he minded.


    That, more than the million other minor personal changes, had rattled his self-confidence. He could feel it, sometimes, late at night as he twisted and turned, trying to fall asleep; or as he relaxed, deep in meditation, finding himself shocked deeply enough by some minor revelation as to almost be thrown back to the waking world.


    He had lost his desperate want. He had lost the need to move forward, to progress, to grow.


    The disaster that had shattered his Being and birthed the screaming, spitting spirit trapped against his mind and core had changed him in many ways beyond the immediate and obvious. He had been angry, and violent and depressed and terrified¡­ and all the rest. But the emotions had calmed, after all had finally settled and time had begun to pass. The fear had been assuaged by years of easy life and calm meditation and soft fights.


    Kyo had come to realize, slowly, how truly boring his pain was. How devoid of weight his anger and hatred were. He had healed, mostly, from those mental scars, though he was yet clearing the last of the truly emotional devastation he had gone through from his mind and shattered Being.


    What he had been left with was a deep and unassailable passivity.


    It was all¡­ boring.


    The screams that still echoed in his ears.


    The beauty and joy of the summer day around him¡­


    The old hatreds and the new tranquility¡­ All felt thin, weightless.


    He sometimes wondered, deep down in well hidden pockets of his mind where he rarely dared tread, if what was left of him might simply float away in the winds one day.


    A presence, moving swiftly and silently through the sparse sagebrush undergrowth towards him, drew him back to the real world and mortal concerns.


    With a soft exhale of breath he hefted the weight of Verlassen, a broadsword styled blade.


    These small chances to spend his own meaningless time in helping others, clearing land and killing smaller, mortal threats, seemed to be doing his slowly reforming Being some good.


    This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    The creature¡¯s presence felt low and long, moving rapidly in towards him from off to the right of the path in a sort of half-spiral approach.


    An ascended beast, a mink or large rodent or small cat of some type maybe?


    He settled into his stance and, rotating to keep the still hidden beast always to his front, danced his blade back and forth a little, held out in front, loosening his wrists.


    Presence and mind and instincts slowed and settled and focused in, pulling forwards and sharpening on the approaching threat.


    It was laughable, really. This little thing could probably barely offer him a threat, but the first lesson he had had to relearn after the shattering of his being had been to treat every enemy with great respect.


    Even without a whole Being for Kyo to wield, he still had many of the resources of a greater mind to wield against the beast.


    It, like most of the threats he met out on these roads, only dared approach him because his lack of a whole Spirit made him appear as little more than an unawakened mortal, detectable only by his scent and other normal senses, - or a truly advanced Phyriker. It that way, his spiritual injuries made him more suited to the task than most highminded. Where they would only scare away this beast, maybe never even seeing or feeling it, he was a perfect lure.


    A darting shape, leaping silently from the bushes, a startling howl as cold steel severed through the beast''s spine; and a careful twist of his swing¡¯s momentum managed to redirect most of the blood spray.


    He stepped forward tentatively, pressing his spirit sense casually out into the scrublands and thin trees just in case, and bent down to examine the seizing corpse.


    A mink, definitely, or its far distant ancestors had been.


    For all that Impyrium-trained terraformists insisted on using primordial lineages to populate their worlds, the process of artificially populating a world could have extremely mutagenic effects. It looked like this beast had started life as something far closer to a small dog/large rat than its ancestors would have.


    Beyond that, the process of cultivating the world¡¯s energies, if not carried out with a firm hand or in complete accordance with nature, often wreaked havoc on genetics.


    A shame, that, Kyo mused to himself. The meat was far too cyst-filled to harvest. No sane person would eat anything that smelled like this.


    Still, waste-not-want-not.


    A moment to clean his blade, (Verlassen was practically singing with joy at the chance to enact its purpose,) before stabbing it a foot or so into draught-hardened soil, and Kyo settled down to skin the beast.


    Someone, not him but a crafter or forger or some other artisan, would have good use for the hide and bones and teeth at least.


    He would probably meet several more such threats along the road, maybe even some true threats, and if he was diligent enough about his harvesting, he could arrive at Carihine with a tidy little bundle of sellables.


    Not that he truly needed the money, he had barely touched his Slayer contract¡¯s wages, and had only ever dipped his toes into the stipend he was given for day to day expenses, but it felt a little silly to him to simply let the valuable bits go to waste. It felt disrespectful.


    He had only ever read the Adjudicator¡¯s works out of mild interest, and did not go nearly as far as to treat the books as religion, as some Slayers chose to; but the original slayer¡¯s works resonated with him, on a deep level, and frugality and the effort to make use of all possible resources were baked deep into the whole philosophy. And, he could practically feel the slowly rebuilding fragments of his Being resonating with the work.


    When he was done, he sat for a while before rising again, taking a moment to mourn the dumb beast¡¯s unnecessary death, enjoying the growing night, and stretch his soul and body.


    Eventually he did rise, and walk on.


    It really was a nice day, for all the pain and despair. Not to mention the sword still sticking out of his shoulder.