The boy snorted. "Why should we listen to you? You're also a saiden."
"Because I learned the dance." How tired he was from explaining this sameness to every mud-minded saiden.
The young ashman shrugged. "I can also move my legs and dance if you want. That does not make you the leader, though."
Merrin spoke as the shaman. "The non-want for something is often the true need of that thing…Do you understand?"
"Oh," this admitted a deep frown. "Let us dance for the leader."
Merrin marveled at this level of machismo. Surely, he should know attempts at defeating him were impossible. The shamans saw to that. They made him the high thing of expert motions.
The dance brought a deeper awareness, closer to the backdoor innerself. The one that worked independently of the outerself. This saiden was more outerself than innerself. Merrin, however, was both: a fusion of aspects that brought deeper self-knowledge. How would he explain that? Any attempt would be consonant with the washing of the soot mountains—an impossibility on both accounts.
He sighed openly. "We don't have time for this. Soon, the older ashmen will return from their hunt. I must have mine before him."
A female Eidan, long-haired. A weirdness for an Ashman, as the hair blinded the eyes in the sure storm. Or was she more adept at sound finding? He wondered—his mind half concerned with what she said.
"He's right, we need this." She said, her voice a soft contralto. "Let's get down to saitan and see what we can find."
Strange, her words brought more of a finality to them. Why? Was she the secret leader instead of him? Merrin frowned, but saw no means of retort. She moved ahead, standing at the lip of the peak—below, the mountains sprawled like spikes of rock—dangerous. Ancient. Powerful. The mountains were eternal. Ashmen rode the mountains; thus, Ashmen were eternal.
She jumped. And Merrin heard the distant rattling of chains. She was daring, he knew that now, and sensed that the likelihood of her authority stemmed from that singular fact. Using the chains was quicker—an installation long completed by old ashmen, some born and dead before the common era. But that made them rusty—old. Using them brought speed and near-death.
She gambled on the former.
Merrin looked down. The further depths: a pit of jagged earth, mountains, and a long trail of metal. Clanging. The others looked out with him, but he knew none saw as he saw. This was also his specialty. She dangled on the chain, smiling. A provocative remark. "I dare you," she thought. "I dare you to do what I did." This piqued him. He looked to the side, observed the slight fright on their faces.
They must see I can too. Merrin jumped and heard then the whistling of the wind. The howling of the mountains as the storms battered and sliced past its many chasms, hills, and backs. It felt like music, a tune that fitted well into the deeper parts of the body's tune. "The body sang," the shaman had said… They said, when the world's music blended with the body's own, that becomes a sensation blandly called comfort.
Drab or not, Merrin felt the comfort. The warming of the wind, the rising of the steam as he drew closer to the world. How freeing it would be to just merge with the land. A single intention that would make him one with the world—although that offered a sure door to damnation.
Men were not to kill themselves.
Merrin grabbed the chain and twirled down in a course-reduction manner. He soon stopped and hung there, silent, the rain drenching deep into his being. The same was true for the rising steam. He looked down and saw the girl. "See? I can do it too." That was what he desired to say, but there was a threat in that action. To speak, to sound out in the world, was a danger. Many creatures found paths through the noise.
Instead, he spoke through signs. Gestures formed and learned by the ashmen. It was theirs, their language. Glyphs were the written form of it. She saw it and said, in signs, "Stop copying my flow."
"I never did," Merrin signed back and heard the rattling of nearby chains. They actually did as we did. He turned to her, "Now, whose flow are they copying?"
"Mine!" She said without delay. A bold thing. That, regardless, brought a certain approval from Merrin. He was still better than her, though.
They dropped down—the young ashmen. Some panted, some smiled, some froze in awed disbelief. They had done it, they would think, they were greater. What children.
Merrin turned to the Sierra and signed. "We will be heading to saitan."
One, the same young saiden who claimed leadership, signed, "Do we climb down and follow the paths?"
What a pseud. Merrin mocked. "No, we will jump the chains. There is always one close by. Just hope you find one before the land calls you."
He shivered, rain flinging from his hair and chin.
The girl smiled, heaved a breath, and Merrin saw readiness in her eyes.
"Wait—" he tried to sign, but she jumped, cutting through the tendrilling steam, blurring in the distance. Chances were death had come for her—a plaster on some mountainside. But conceit ruled, and he, giving a final sign, followed.
"Follow!" he had signed to them.
Comprehensive knowledge of the Eastorian culture as collected by the Scholae. Eidan, a term to denote the female young Ashman. The saiden, one for the young male Ashman. This distinction, as observed, creates a distinct sense of uniqueness. Though the fragility that such a title was gained by virtue of age is concerning.
Merrin reached for a dangling chain—a sole thing in the soaring white mist. He snatched it, wiggling as the chain did. No time. He jumped again, passing now the side of a cliff. How close he was, that he sensed a brief whiff of the winds would turn him into a redness on the form of the rock. Though some ashmen treated that as a fair way to die. The mountains were God's first lands—to die on them…That was good.
He did not agree; instead, he opened his arms, feeling the wind cut past. This was yet another specialty taught by the Shamans. Many, many things. He was a starkness to the normal Ashmen. The arm opening slowed him down. A deliberate thing. Just then, his arms closed, pressing his legs together—his speed lifted.
Now, he was like a bird in the wind, those rare blind ones. As he was now. He did not see through the mist, but heard the distant rattling of chains. That guided his course. Close. Merrin reached out, slapping into the chain. There was pain in the collision. Hot but dismissible pain. He heard the approach of the others, smiled at the leadership gained by his firstness. He heaved a breath through the nose and out the mouth.
Looking out in the distance, he marked a mountain of stone spikes and knew the closeness which he achieved to saitan. "Alright, let's get that fur."
A moment.
Something moved in the darkness—words, glyphs, symbols, shapes. They blurred in a flash of moments and vanished, solid for but an instant. Merrin frowned and mopped his eyes. Was the moss smoked in the mountains affecting him?
He jumped again, heard the wind, tasted the rain. Felt it all. It wasn't long now. He grabbed another chain and depressed into the small mountains, more hills. But they were closer to saitan—and jumping blindly into there was a ready risk. Saitan feeds full on many ashmen lives.
The ground beneath sank with his feet—as most surfaces were. He took up environmental awareness. He realized the slower fall of the rain, the weaker flares of lightning. The world plunged into true darkness—eerily silent, at least for a lowlander. Or so he heard. He crouched, a thing to avoid detection from certain-eyed beasts. Most things were blind, yes, but most were not. The latter rarely came, yet still did.
He peered up, noted the rocky spikes, natural highstones rising to the flank of the mountain; rain was rolling from there. A trail of river water streamed by his side. Not cold, of course, likely warm. Merrin took out the stone knife from his clothes, pacing.
Steps approached from behind, and he knew them familiar. The rest had arrived. Took their time getting here. He mocked. A tap on his shoulder. He turned, saw the daring Eidan, and translated her signs.
"What do we do now?"
Merrin regarded her. "Over this hill is saitan; we move slowly."
"I can't hear anything," signed the pride-filled saiden.
"The rain bothers," Merrin responded. "But I know it's there."
There was an unspoken understanding. This was the ashmen way. Regardless of the emotion, the viles committed against another, amid the steam, the rain, and darkness, all is cleansed for survival. Merrin nodded and moved on, crouching—crawling, but never in quickness.
They would hunt the fur back today. Return, and he would rub this deed on Leim's face. Oh, he tasted the annoyance on Leim's face, at least, he tasted the future instance of it. Not that it mattered, Leim always made faces. "I wonder which one he would make today?" He sneered within, reached for a stone spike, and pulled forward. This was the way of mobility for the ashmen. Most of everything was mire; the mountains—the spikes and bumps they provided—allowed movement.