Spear of Destiny by James Baldwin (little bear else holmelund minarik .TXT) 📕

Tuun. “It isn’t something you can do for me straight away, but it is unfair to leave your questions hanging.”

That took me aback a little. Vash wasn’t usually one for explaining himself. “I’m guessing it’s a quest. What level do you think we’d need to be to help you?”

He made a face, thinking. “Hrrnn... Level Thirty-four? Thirty-Five?”

I whistled. “Yeah. That’s a ways off.”

“Mmph.” His thin face settled into deep, troubled lines. “Not as far as either of us would like to think.”

“Talk to me, man.” I rested my arms on my knees. “Is something wrong with Istvan, or...?”

“No.” Vash closed his eyes, gathering his words. “It is personal. All this talk of the Drachan, and would-be tyrants...” He sneered, reaching back to pull his fall of beaded braids over his shoulder. “I smell a tsunami heading for Vlachia, Hector. A black tide, full of monsters and human hatred. And I found myself thinking back, back to the unresolved guilt that still haunts me. The death of my family.”

“You once told me you were a kinslayer,” I said, slowly. “I admit I’ve wondered.”

His eyes flickered open again. “It is a long story.”

I shrugged. “I’m a patient guy. Sort of.”

Vash fell silent for a time. His muscles loosened, his breathing slowed, and his skin bloomed with a healthy pink glow. He was somehow consciously controlling his body at a very deep level. Slowing it down to head off stress.

“I was born in the plateau country about a week’s ride south-east of Norbu, the town which is the center of Tuun life in Vlachia,” he said calmly. “The Dorha clan was wealthy, with a thousand head of cattle.  My mother, Lhaho, was a strong woman who managed us with kindness and competence. She had four husbands, with three children by two of them: me, my little sister Saaba, and my elder sister… Tsunda.”

He paused after speaking her name, grimacing like a man with a stomach ache.

“Saaba was a gentle girl. Full of energy and very playful. I loved her fiercely,” he continued. “But Tsunda, aiyai-yai. She was never quite right in the head.”

“What was wrong with her?” I asked.

“From early in her life, she was prone to wild dreams and fiery rages. If something upset her, she would cry and scream until she vomited. If she was happy, she’d become manic, unable to sleep.” Vash’s eyes grew distant as he spoke. “She was very violent. She once bit my mother on the face so hard she took a mouthful of her flesh.”

“Like... as a toddler?”

“No. As a girl of eight,” Vash replied. “But it gets worse. Around the time she started her moonblood, she began to hear voices and see terrible visions, hallucinations so overwhelming that she would claw at her skin, pull her clothes off, and attack people who were not there. Every day, from dawn to dusk, she ranted and raved about ‘metal demons’ and people being killed by swarms of black bees or wasps. Trees terrified her. She spoke of nations built of black crystals, shattered by fire and explosions, and countless people dying. She became paranoid of us all, convinced that we would murder her. Her violence became not only frightening, but dangerous.”

“Sounds like some kind of psychosis. I saw guys crack like that in Indonesia a few times.” I glanced at the web of scars that divided Vash’s face. He might have been handsome once, in a wolfish kind of way. Someone had smashed an axe into his face six or seven times and left the front of his skull crazed like a broken mirror. I was starting to figure who that might have been.

Vash shrugged. “Who knows? Regardless, my parents and grandparents were devastated. Tsunda was the family heir, and she was unmarriageable. My grandmother did not believe that Tsunda was sick with an illness. There were only two possible answers: either she was possessed by demons, or she was a shaman. A young shaman who desperately required the guidance of a master.”

“Oof.” I winced. “Was it Tsunda who smashed up your face?”

He nodded. “When she was fourteen and I was eight, Tsunda began to abuse us terribly. She hated Saaba, and was convinced she was one of her metal demons. Saaba was only three, but Tsunda was convinced she would destroy us all. I taught Saaba to hide from our sister and took Tsunda’s attentions onto myself. Beatings, shouting, and worse. But one day, she pushed me too far. She demanded something of me I would not do. I stood up to her and she backed off, but once we returned home, she took the axe from the chopping block outside my father’s yurt and attacked me in a frenzy. I nearly died.”

“Holy shit.” I let out a terse puff of breath. “Is that… like… how you became a Baru?”

“No, no. My grandparents were able to treat my wounds, though I had to wear bandages on my face for months.” He rubbed the edge of his thumb over one of the crooked white gouges in his cheek. “After Tsunda attacked me, my mother ordered she be tied to her bed. We all knew she could no longer be managed at home. There was a vote, with some of the clan saying she should be taken to Solonovka to see a Vlachian doctor. But most of my family still did not believe Tsunda’s condition was a physical illness. Tsunda’s father, his brother, and their mother volunteered to take her to see the Abbott at the Temple of the Pure Body in Norbu. They undertook the two-week trek to the monastery, dragging Tsunda on a sled. But during my family’s stay, Norbu—and most of the populated Southern Highlands of Myszno—were struck with plague.”

“They got sick?”

“Worse.” Vash shook his head. “My clan-father, uncle and grandmother were healthy when they fled the city, but