“The sculpture depicts my father. He was the first to discover that spearbirds can understand human conversation through tonality and facial expression. It took 100 years for him to train one. Now there are many more.” Vikushak stood very proud, his rear still exposed, yet still very cautious and mindful never to expose his face.

  “Spearbird? What’s that?” Ysan asked.

  “Serpent’s Ramble is very long. My home is… downstream. You can find lots there. But it is treacherous. That’s why the spearbird is so grand, risking its wings for us where we have none. I would not go to look for my brother. It is not safe.”

  If Hazahnahkah didn’t know any better, he would believe that Vikushak was egging them on to go look for his brother. This was most strange.

  However, the two women were now more curious about this new bird. “How far could it possibly be? Surely you could show us,” Ysan reasoned. She repeated a common mantra heard throughout Serpent’s Ramble. “We are of the water and so we live by the water.”

  “But neither I nor my brother are of the water as you say,” Vikushak replied, clearly still egging them on. “In fact my brother has a fear of water. However, if you would like to see from where we hail… then you may come to Serpent’s Tail.”

  “There’s nothing at The Serpent’s Tail but foam and mist,” Ul said.

  “Everything is nothing until we make something of it,” Vikushak replied. “I have dreams of a city in my sleep. Is that nothing?” He sighed at his father’s face. “I have so many dreams. They tell me so many designs.”

  How simplistic. Hazahnahkah was taking a liking to this man, yet still Ysan and Ul continued towards Serpent’s Tail anyway. The Serpent’s Ramble fell, raged, and spiraled for well over 200 miles, but raft, ferry, and occasional hippoback made it feel like 20 until The Brown Aegis of Providence cut off the sky.

  The Brown Aegis of Providence was a grand phenomenon of earth rippling towards the heavens. Even Hazahnahkah had absolutely no clue as to what might have caused it. Also known as the Maple Escutcheon or the Earthwave, it was exactly as people described: miles upon miles of leafy mountain, so great that the planet seemed to end, right at the boundary of existing and not existing. The Brown Aegis of Providence was a glorious and beautiful testament to all that rivaled Hazahnahkah.

  It was also where Serpent’s Tail was to be found. It was where most said “The Serpent Came” and where others argued “The Serpent Lead”. Most discussions were, however, cut short by the fact that nobody could break through, dig under, fly over, or through some way or another, make it past the Earthwave.

  Wood quickly turned to foam and mist, and so Ysan and Ul set up camp. To which they were pleasantly surprised to find the very man they were looking for, drawn to their fire. They tried to feign they were not staring at him, then turned to look again. Generally, this meant they found someone attractive.

  The man was as Vikushak described. Smaller and colorful. His hair was a curly white and brown blend. His skin, most notably of all, was an extraordinary synthesis of white and pink. His ears, eyes, chin, cheeks, and teeth were terribly sharp. Vikushak had not been ugly, but his brother was undoubtedly beautiful.

  “Hello,” Ysan bowed. “We met your brother.”

  “Yes, he points all the fools his way—towards The Serpent’s Tail.”

  “Does your home not welcome visitors?”

  “Why should I answer to his lies?”

  “Lies?”

  “There is nothing beyond The Serpent, that is why this is called Serpent’s Tail.”

  “Then from where did you come?”

  Bankanzaku smiled. “Perhaps I may tell you if you sculpt me into eternity from stone, my ugly brother refuses to do so.”

  “I don’t know how to do that,” Ysan said.

  “Then I don’t know how to tell you.”

  Ysan grunted and paced towards the nearest rock, drawing Hazahnahkah from the strap at her side and flinging him around. “I don’t even have the proper tools! At least provide them! This sword is old, it would not cut a tree, much less stone—!” The blade nicked the rock, and Hazahnahkah decided to humor himself.

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  Hazahnahkah had many powers, but none more magnificent and strange than what he called his “Three Terrors”. In this moment, as he graced the stone, he decided to put his Third Terror to use: The Terror of Control. He used this power to command every air molecule in a narrow plane—thickness around a few nanometers—to pack together in a perfectly uniform high-density line. This created a pressure discontinuity: one side at normal atmospheric pressure, the other side at triple that. It cut with absolute precision in a way that broke all laws of physics… for was true control not the ability to manipulate reason itself? Even though Hazahnahkah had struck once, it was with force so precise against reality, that he could change the very shape of what he had reached out to. Most of his feats were an extension of this ability—including the restoration of Ysan’s eyesight, the clothes he had once made her, and the calming of the river… but it had been a long time since he had gotten to directly show off. At this moment, the stone splintered into a beautiful figurehead in the shape of Ul and Ysan, peering through a crown of flowers at one another, among a reef of coral.

  Hazahnahkah would like to see the sky take credit for that.

  Ul was just as startled and amazed as Ysan was. They both looked to Hazahnahkah, knowing it was him.

  Hazahnahkah: Treasured 75/100 → Revered 85/100

  Ysan: Protective 70/100 → Seen 90/100

  Bankanzaku paled, a frog in his throat, eyes unable to close at the sight of the sculpture. He too looked at the blade. “Very well, I shall tell you…”

  “But the shape was not of you,” Ysan reasoned.

  Bankanzaku shrugged. “I’m impressed enough to tell you my brother is lying. That’s all. We are vagabonds, traveling from here to there. Neither of us remember where we came, but I can say for certain we came not from beyond Serpent’s Tail.”

  Bankanzaku was lying. Hazahnahkah could tell easily in his observation of the man. However, Ysan and Ul were unable to make such distinctions. They asked why Vikushak would lie, and received several solid answers, and yet, they would be stranded in their beliefs of who was true and who was not.

  “In honesty, we have been come looking for a mate,” Bankanzaku continued. “While Vikushak finds many that suit him, I have found little. However, I feel both of you are potentially adequate candidates. Your beauty is apparent to me, even without the sculpture.”

  Ysan rejected his offer, but Ul was quick to accept in secret. Ysan’s closest friend had never felt “at home” with anyone, even her own mother. This perhaps, could have been her true intention for coming so far—to seek someone who was not of the village.

  Ul stayed behind in the forest, and Hazahnahkah knew what that meant as well as his wielder did. Two months later, they would discover Ul was pregnant, and four months later, the village would announce a marriage. To Hazahnahkah’s horror that marriage day, Ul was not the only one getting married. 17 other mortified women, also pregnant, had been waiting at the aisle—all for Bankanzaku, who never even showed up.

  The village was thrust into chaos. There was arguing and fights. Men and women quickly got together, farming tools and cavern torches raised to smite the naked man.

  Ysan led the effort, but everyone was still confused. Nobody could make sense of why Bankanzaku would do such a thing. They found him drinking from a stream and tried to take him by surprise. Their steel bounced uselessly off him. Their fire didn’t burn. He broke their tools one by one, until he reached Ysan—who still had never swung a sword before.

  The woman was shaking, but it was with anger. “You will repay your debts and fulfill your duties.”

  “Ysan!” Ul cried out. “Don’t do this. What’s done is done!”

  “Do it!” another pregnant woman cried. “Kill him!”

  “Take him prisoner!” screamed several more.

  “You can’t. Not with that toy.” Bankanzaku made a claw out of his hand, nails became talons, scales spreading from fingers to palm to wrist to forearm. “I have been doing this for ages, and you're not going to be the last one to try and make these 19 my last.”

  “Why do this?”

  “Because I enjoy seeing stupid women like you grasp at straws. If it wasn’t for that, I probably wouldn’t do this at all.”

  “It’s wrong!”

  “It’s fun.”

  Ysan charged him down, and missed. If Hazahnahkah had lips, he would have sucked them in. Even he could do mostly nothing if his wielder could not deal a blow. Bankanzaku kicked her in the hamstring and forced her to a knee. He grunted.

  “I don’t want to kill you. I’m not some psychopath. You’re annoying. Go away.”

  Ysan laughed at that, then whirled around and sliced his cheek open. At the last moment, Bankanzaku reinforced his face with scales, but the blunt force from Hazahnahkah sent the man spiraling through several trees. The naked man’s back cracked against each one. He shook with anger, glaring at the sword. He wiped his bloodied lips.

  “You will choose my fate?” Bankanzaku looked at Hazahnahkah. He spoke to the sword. “Is that so, blade?”

  Ysan grimaced. “No. Your children will choose your fate, just like you have chosen for so many others.”

  “I refuse to bow to some pregnant woman’s spawn.”

  “You made them pregnant!”

  “Because they were fools! I AM NO FOOL!” Bankanzaku bellowed, whipping at the wind with both arms, sending a gust against the woods powerful enough to splinter the oldest of trees and boulders.

  Hazahnahkah automatically drew debris towards him to protect Ysan. By the time she readied herself to charge, Bankanzaku had disappeared, just like he had with every woman before her.