There’s is a natural rhythm to our travel. We walk without talking and it feels harmonious. My skill at finding a feeding obelisk is still of value even as they seem to spring from any nook, cranny, or crevice in the land just as Aviela demands it. I make a show of eating from them when she does but my stomach does not demand the sustenance of the architects. I don’t feel hungry as we walk, at least not for the obelisk.
For her part, my Marked companion strikes dead any monster that looks at us as a meal or as an interest; we only run once when a herd of creatures as heavy as ten men with horns twice as wide as my arms stretched out stampedes across the brush. I learn how quickly I can move when I need to and it is exhilarating to feel the rush of air in my face as my legs pump and I almost, so almost keep up with Aviela.
The segment beyond the brush is cold. I shiver as sheeting rain washes over us. We huddle in a cave in the side of a gorge that cuts through the land and is our path to the segment beyond. Aviela has many wonders in her pack, one of which is a flint and steel, and a small supply of wood. Barely three sticks, but she breaks them down and lights them up and the cold is kept at bay for a few hours at least. I long for clothing. My own skin is hardened from before I became enlightened but it is a poor substitute for being clad.
I don’t learn any more about readying myself for the advancement to Marked and I don’t even broach the subject of the trials and going beyond the Undercroft; Aviela grounds each of our conversations before I can learn anything of note. Still, I watch her more closely than I ever watched Oran or Lucil. I am closer too so I see the signs of effort as she uses her power; the small lines in her face that appear as she tenses and her power bursts forth.
We pass through another wall; this time the crack between segments is low down, half submerged in the bubbling river flow at the bottom of the gorge. I’m shaking with the cold as we emerge into the rising cycle of a segment lush with green.
I’m sweating in moments. “The river tribe live here?” I complain as I swat aside a fly that has decided to make a meal of me.
“It has a lot of positive attributes, actually. The monsters here are relatively tame and there are plenty with fur that can be used for clothes. There’s wood for fire. Flowing water in which to wash and trees sturdy enough to hold their settlement above the ground. It’s warm too.” Aviela hops over tree roots and through thick undergrowth; the worst of the tangle she cuts through with beams of light so the going is easier than I thought it might be.
“Can’t imagine living somewhere like this. All the time too.” She’s not being bitten, I realise, it’s just me who is a feast for the bugs.
“Would you rather walk forever or live with some flies?”
“Walk forever.”
“Then I call you liar, Pik. Don’t make a habit of it.”
I tut. “I’m not lying. I don’t know anything but walking. I was walking before I got scattered and I’ve been walking ever since. I’ve walked almost every moment we’ve been together.”
“Well, we’ll be here for a few days if they allow it, so see how it feels.”
“It won’t matter.” I shrug. “I know we’ll keep moving so it’s not the same as settling. Anyone can put up with a few days if they have something to look forward to.”
Aviela smiles at me. Her teeth are straight on top but crowded below leaving her front twisted in a pleasant way. “You look forward to leaving with me, Pik?”
I round my shoulders and look forward into the trees. “I’m looking forward to advancing to Marked. That’s all.”
“Right.” She jostles my shoulder. “You’ve not been a bad companion so far, Pik. At least you’re not a chatterer. Blazing sun I’ve had to listen to yarns, Pik. Tales tall and short. It put me off traveling with others for months.”
“I like talking. I think.”
“You think?”
“Didn’t have much time for stories, before. Been busy since I got here.”
Aviela doesn’t know how to answer my confession so makes an unreadable face and we push on through the vegetation while I feel the fool.
She makes me wash before we reach the static. I would have done so without cajoling but she spots the stream before I do and heads straight towards it with a new urgency. We’ve managed to get dirtier on our trudge through the gorge and I’ve sweat so much that my skin shimmers in this dense heat.
“I’m washing upriver. If you come up while I’m washing I will take both your eyes and leave you for the monsters.” I don’t peek. I’m unsure why she thinks I would.
The water is balm to my body; all the aches and pains of travel are washed out in the cool water and I lie on the stream bed, letting it flow over me until all fears of recent days are washed away.
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“You look clean to me.” Aviela is dressed, clean, and ready with her pack on the shore. I let out a huff and stand. I don’t bother removing my tattered trousers as they will dry quickly in the heat and are as filthy as the rest of me.
“Looks can be deceiving.” I hop out and flop my mop of hair to get the worst of the liquid out. “I like the water. When it’s not a whole segment anyway. Have you encountered a water segment before?”
“One. It’s two months travel though and I have no desire to revisit. The monsters were awful.”
I smile. “I almost lost a toe in ours. We were splashing from island to island for days with little snappy creatures biting us the whole time. Not fun.” The only reason we hadn’t all perished in that particular tribulation was that Lucil darted her spear through the water and cleared enough of the monsters that we could make it to the next island each time. We still lost three people.
“Good that all we have here are trees, then. Come, little wanderer, let’s find our hosts.”
It is another half a day before we are hailed from the treetops.
“Lo, wanderers.”
Aviela raises her hand in greeting. “Lo, river.” She waits as a man scrambled down from the high branches with surprising grace. His hands find holds that I cannot see and he glides to a stop just before us with a grin as broad as his face and ginger hair that makes him look like a sunbeam.
“Couldn’t stay away, eh, Aviela.”
“Lokan, it is good to see you.”
The river man looks at me and leans closer to inspect. “What have you here? It’s not like you to have a companion, Aviela, especially not one so bare to to the elements as this one. Where’d you find him?”
“Alone in the dust.” Her face darkens. “Leaf found him first.”
“That explains the nakedness. Poor fellow. What’s your name, naked man?”
I shrink and fight the urge to cover my nakedness with my hands. I’m not really naked in any case; there’s nothing on display that shouldn’t be. “Pik.”
“Pik, is it?” He shrugs. “Simple enough. Come, Aviela and Pik, I’ll welcome you to the static of the river tribe.” The man throws his arms around my shoulder and pulls me in closer. “I hope you like climbing.”
I don’t.
The final trudge through the forest is accompanied by the constant and inane chatter of Lokan and Aviela responding in kind and in complete contravention of her declaration to prefer quiet, stoic companions. They are talking about people and things for which I have no reference so I’m quickly lost and simply trail behind them until we reach the base of the village.
The village is a hundred feet above the forest floor on platforms linked by rope and slat bridges. I topple back and have to right myself as I try to follow the complexity of it all. Its mad. A mad marvel. The thirty seven tribes never settled anywhere. We never built more than a mobile shelter and the false cities sometimes conjured for the trials were the closest to this kind of settlement.
“Little wanderer.” Lokan grins at me and it prickles my ego. “I’ll call for the ladder, shall I?”
“Don’t be mean to him, Lokan, he’s not had the best time.” Aviela pats me on my shoulder, settles her pack more firmly on her own, and leaps into the trees. She reaches in the village in five short bounds.
Lokan whistles. “Don’t we wish we were Marked. Blazing sun they can move, right? I wasn’t joking about the ladder, just so you know, I wasn’t making fun of you much either. There’s no shame in needing a hand up.”
I look at the trees. They’re too smooth, the lower reaches are mostly bare and it would take someone with skill and experience to scramble up their sheer faces unaided. I grit my teeth and swallow the newly formed pride that I am fermenting.
“I would like the ladder, please.”
“Smart move.”
The ladder rolls out, shoved by a waving redhead from above. The architects are usually so liberal with the variety of people they birth from the pods, but perhaps that is simply another quirk of my old sector.
Hand over hand and not looking down, I make my way carefully up the ladder until strong hands reach down and pull me the last few feet onto a blessedly solid platform. The woman who brought me those last feet smiles with a broad grin to match the man below and I am certain now that the architects hewed them from the same boulder.
“Welcome to Treetop. Come, we love meeting new people.” Her smile falters as she understands my state of dress. “I’m sure no one will mind…”
“Lo, Pik.” Aviela’s voice rings across the platforms and I look up, she’s waving to me from across a narrow bridge. She holds a bundle of fur, leather, and cloth out and waggles her eyebrows. “I got you a present.”
A present? For me? My throat closes and I fight back emotion. I smile weakly at the woman beside me and joke. “I hope this is better than the last present I was given. They took the clothes off my back when they wanted it returned.”
She laughs politely and backs away. About right. It is a trial of courage to cross the rickety bridge that hangs between my platform and Aviela’s, but the promise of warm clothing given freely is a heady encouragement.
“Get this stuff on.” Aviela doesn’t wait for my heart to stop pounding. I look down and almost froze mid step once I realise just how high above the forest floor I am. I shuffle the rest of the distance quicker now. “The tribe like to gather in low cycle, very happy and clappy. Don’t be surprised if they break into song. Honestly it’s not the worst, but not my favourite. Maybe you’ll like it, who knows.”
She hands me me an outfit fit for a Marked. A shirt made of soft fibres that sits delicately on my newly muscled shoulders. Trousers without holes that fit about my waist and are cinches with a thick cord. She even provides me with a hide and fur coat for when we head into colder segments. It’s treasure, worth more than the hoard of a dungeon to me and I am on the brink of tears.
“Thank you.” I force out the words.
“Huh? Oh, yes. Don’t worry about it. If you’re traveling with me you’ll need all that. Your shoes looked fine so I didn’t barter for a new pair. We’ll pick some up next time if we need to.”
“Next time.” I echo her words and understand that in the two short days that we’ve been traveling together that she’s found a place for me in her future. “Wait. Aviela. Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you doing so much for me?”
She shrugs. “No idea. Doesn’t make much sense to me either. Now, they said that there’s someone else here…Come, their gathering place is the next platform over.”
I want to thank her more but there are no words that will convey my happiness to be accepted in this simple and straight forward way. I’m with her. We’re together. That is what she said and what she means and I follow her with my chest puffed with this new pride. A Marked has chosen me. A Marked is going to teach me about advancement. I’m going to ascend to the next place and be a step closer to heaven.
“Lo, Pik.” A voice from my past slams into me with the weight of dreaded memories. At the edge of the crowded platform, filled with the folk of the river tribe, stands Oran.
