Chapter 61: A New Perspective

  KELAS POV

  After nearly a tenday, Kes finally understood why he had not seen the other Calen elves in such a long time.

  “Are you sure this is where they came from?”

  The one called Fisk had asked the question, his ear cocked upward as he stared at Kes. Like all the Calen elves in his group, Fisk was a little taller and much bulkier than Kes – and despite the ck of ancestral memory the Calen had to contend with, the young leader of the small band had earned Kes’s grudging respect.

  Fisk was decisive, but he knew when to listen to his subordinates… and, more importantly, when to listen to Kes himself. Yet now Kes found his guidance being questioned, and he couldn’t really bme them. He had cimed there was a clear path to another Barren Land.

  He looked to his right again, staring down at the wide gap of water that pped sluggishly against the shore several tail-lengths below. In the distance, he could see green hills… the nd that he knew cked the healthy warmth of mana he felt so comfortable within.

  At this distance, they were more like a very dark green – almost bck – like the coils of a Lurker rising up from the surface of the marsh. The thin mist that hung around the base of the nd did little to banish that mental image, and Kes felt a small quiver run down his spine to the tip of his tail at the thought.

  He had lost two lives to Lurkers, and the single life that had escaped had not returned from that encounter entirely whole. Those memories were painful for him to recall… the pitying looks of his fellows as they cared for him for the rest of that lifetime, barely able to walk and in constant pain that had eventually led to Vital poisoning from the attempts to curb it.

  He shook his head and looked back toward Fisk, his tail drooping in apology.

  “I was st here two lifetimes ago,” Kes expined. “The nd does not shift very quickly, but it was long ago. Something must have happened to the Barren Path.”

  “We should’ve listened to Tastka to start with,” the one called Solen grumbled. She crossed her arms and gred at Kes.

  While the others had been eager to have his help, every woman in the group had been much harder to win over. The long memories he could draw upon helped him understand why, at least.

  Eyssa, as a fellow [Horizon Bearer], seemed to view him as something like a rival… and also disliked how he had argued with Tastka. Apparently, they were sisters, or something like that, but Kes had trouble grasping the concept. He only knew of family bonds from speaking with the Sylen and the Calen elves he’d encountered in past lives, but it was very different seeing it directly in this one. One’s own memories always carried more weight.

  Solen just didn’t seem to like him. That, Kes could understand a little better, though he didn’t share that with the others. Solen was always grumpy about something, and he could tell it was because she had feelings for Tastka that Tastka herself didn’t seem to return. In fact, Tastka didn’t even seem to be aware of it.

  She was the confusing part of this group.

  Kes had never encountered Calen elves in this lifetime, but his lineage of wanderers and explorers had met them many times before. These Calen were different from the ones he remembered, but the simirities were greater than the differences. They had strange habits and spoke with strange words, but he could still rete to them.

  All except for Tastka.

  Even now, the young Calen appeared distant and paid little attention to the budding argument. She had said they would have a difficult time reaching those hills… but it had been a mutter, almost to herself. The others had still considered even that mumble important, yet Fisk had decided to follow the path Kes suggested, since he had already safely led them out of the forest.

  It worried Kes, and he could now see why the Grand One had insisted on him traveling with these strange outsiders. Kes had seen signs like what Tastka showed before.

  Memory sickness looked just like this… and it was becoming more common among the women of his people. But his careful and delicate questioning had confirmed to Kes that none of the Calen elves, including Tastka, had any memories of past lives.

  It might look like memory sickness, but it was clearly something else.

  Even the Grand One hadn’t been sure what he’d seen when he looked upon Tastka. Kes had been told that Tastka already possessed a second primary css – something not unheard of for one so young, but exceedingly rare.

  It might have been easier for the Calen to unlock such things early, but Kes doubted that. Even her companions seemed to treat Tastka as something different.

  What had truly unsettled everyone was that simply trying to look at her second css had harmed both her and the Grand One. Like many of the Aravel, the Grand One was already worried about the recent changes to the System… and the new csses that had begun appearing. Now an outsider had arrived with a css that couldn’t even be properly seen.

  It wasn’t that the Aravel disliked the Calen outsiders, but offering to help them hadn’t been purely altruistic. Kes liked them all well enough, but he was here to ensure that neither they nor what they sought would become a danger to his people.

  “I don’t understand what you mean by lifetimes,” Fisk growled.

  Kes flicked his tail in nervous worry. How could he expin how his people lived to those who would never experience it? More importantly, this was the moment when Fisk and the others would decide whether Kes was worth keeping with them… or whether they’d send him back.

  The Grand One had been convinced Kes would prove his worth on the journey, and up until now, that had been easy. Kes knew all the pnts and animals of this region from his previous lifetimes wandering it. He had done his best to be useful, even teaching the Calen some of the tricks the Aravel had remembered.

  But now, this unexpected disappearance of the path threatened to ruin all of it.

  “If he hasn’t been here in a long while, obviously he wouldn’t know something’s changed,” one of the others pointed out. It was Dashe, the group’s healer.

  That made sense. While Kes had little talent for Vital mana himself, he knew many things that had been enlightening to the young healer. Of all the men in the group, Dashe had learned the most from Kes, and would likely pressure Fisk to keep him around… even with this unexpected setback.

  “I don’t know the words to expin it properly to you,” Kes replied.

  That wasn’t entirely true, but from his encounters with other Calen in past lives, he knew that trying to expin would only lead to confusion… and sometimes, trouble.

  “For now, I think we need to find a way to cross the water,” Kes continued. “I don’t know of another way to reach the Barren Land you seek.”

  To his annoyance, several members of the group immediately looked toward Tastka, who was still staring off toward the distant hills.

  Duvad asked casually, “Tastka, do you know any magic that would let us cross this water?”

  It was a ridiculous question, of course. Kes knew several ways mana could be used to cross short gaps or smaller bodies of water, but getting multiple elves across something this wide was beyond even the greatest of the Aravel casters.

  Tastka was unusually gifted for a Calen elf, but the Grand One had said she was merely above average for an Aravel. The Calen’s lesser affinity with all mana hindered her, which was why they relied so much on their muscles and tools.

  It was also a strange request because he knew Tastka was a [Flux Speaker]. That css could do many incredible things, but it had little ability to handle this kind of problem.

  Did Tastka’s second css have something to do with this?

  The question, at least, managed to draw Tastka out of her thoughts. The young elf blinked and looked curiously at Duvad before her tail began to sway as she took in the mix of expectant and uncertain faces around her.

  Before she could answer, Fisk spoke for her. “I haven’t seen any sort of magic that could handle something this big. But if you have any ideas, Tastka, could you share them?”

  The curious tilt of one of her ears made Kes realize that Tastka also thought the request was strange – though he didn’t yet understand why. The young elf stared at everyone else, then looked directly at Kes with an expectant lift of her ears.

  “You shouldn’t ask me,” she said. “I don’t know why Kes hasn’t already started working on getting us across. The Aravel have ways of moving across water.”

  Kes felt his stomach twist and his tail nearly jerk to the side before he managed to restrain that disquieting reaction.

  It was the second time Tastka had casually mentioned something about his people that she could never have been told. This was the sort of thing that made him nervous… and made him think the Grand One had been right to insist he keep an eye on her, most of all.

  What made it worse was that Tastka was, in a way, right.

  Reluctantly, he admitted, “We do… but for this many people, it would take some time. We fashion items that float on the water rge enough to sit upon. I’ve never made one big enough for more than two people, and I’ve never tried to cross water this wide.”

  Tastka seemed to think this was fine. She gestured with the butt of her spear while looking at Fisk.

  “See? Kes can just show us how he does it, and we can make it bigger. I’m sure two hands of us can figure out how to make it work.”

  Fisk shot her a doubtful look, but Duvad and Vedas both chuckled, their tails swinging in amusement.

  Duvad stepped closer and offered an amused ear wiggle toward Kes, whose stomach was sinking ever lower with that creeping sense that he was losing control of the situation.

  The other elf’s good mood didn’t surprise Kes; Duvad was one of the ones most trusting of anything Tastka said. The snickering Calen tapped the butt of his spear on the rocky ground with a dull thunk that carried farther than usual on the slope.

  “It sounds like you’re going to be with us for a little while longer, then,” he said.

  Fisk hadn’t given any verbal decision, but the young leader was now squinting toward the hills as well, and didn’t argue with Duvad’s assumption.

  Kes was beginning to wonder if it might be better to be sent home after all.