Chapter 20
"Confidence"
I must empty myself of all that is unnecessary so that I may see and hear and feel all that I can during my mission. There will be no second chance. My past must become nothing. I must fill myself with the wild so that I may become indistinguishable from it. I am shadow. Existence on a much simpler plane.
I started with the earth. The mud sank around my black paws. Claw marks tipped every track. They pointed the way to a swift and dangerous end to all that followed. I made no sound, careful not to brush the reeds. They knew better than to get too close and risk being shredded should I decide to sprint with the speed of the Spirit. I walked carefully. My step calm, yet purposeful and steady. Unlike cats and bears, we Mighty Hena do not hang our heads. The marks above our eyes always points our gaze ahead of us. For the future was as we lived it. Our red eyes always watching. Our gaze never faltering.
Mine remained steady, even as creatures began to appear at my sides. They lounged and loitered about dry pieces of land, scratching and biting at the pests they kept with them. They were mangy and muddy despite the airs they tried to hold about themselves. I counted them. Gauged them. Remembered them. There were less than I expected. Rejects and deformers of the Spirit. Chatter Rats. Golden Necks. Sky Shriekers. Pincer Bugs. Young crocodiles. Only a spotting of more mature gators. Dark Crows and Grass Hoppers. Vipers. Mighty Hena. A few Claw Fish. One with a star.
Most kept to the cracked and shattered stones that once created a path to some human temple. Crows loitered at the tops of broken and shattered moss covered arches. They did not see me at first. Not even as I hopped up onto the temple path lined with columns that placed me above them. They unconsciously moved off to the sides as my tail floated over the stone. Only in my passing did they stop and look and realize that the shadow in their midst was on the move. It was their silence that gave me away. The gasps and whispers that rushed ahead, changing the flow and feel of the Spirit as they went. One Mighty Hena marked with jagged lines looked up. His tail and mane lifted. He knew what I was, if not who, and others closer down the line caught on to his shift in character.
More Grass Hoppers came out from the reeds. A Black Crow called. Snakes and vipers and Chatter Rats came to the edges of the path to see. Some began to hiss and spit at me, but I did not bother them a glance. My eyes were set on the elevated altar at the end of the ruined temple. It served as a relic to ancient times. A dark form sat in front of it, much higher than the rest. It was Exile. He kept two Mighty Hena in his company, one on either side of the steps below him. Despite his hatred of the pack, even he could not resist his own kind. They were darkened Hena. Malformed in Spirit and intoxicated by their Alpha's power. Otherwise unable to find a pack to match their violence and greed and hate.
I was almost upon them when the ripple of my presence finally hit. Exile's body tensed. His ears turned and he stood up, tail high. The Spirit around him flared into a defensive swirl that he dispelled by turning around to look at me. I looked at him, eyes locking. He recognized me immediately in Spirit, but the sight of me at his front steps, past his front lines, without so much as a nick in my coat, pulled his lips up in a snarl. His eyes widened with outrage, flushing his system with such surprise that it took everything I had not to smirk. I was not here to boast. I was not here for him.
He would never think otherwise.
"Mother," he identified and all the creatures around me started an uproar.
They surrounded me, yet not too closely. They were simple but instinctual creatures, so none dare to attack me. Especially with Exile standing at the edge of the altar platform. Behind him, two lines of sacrifices led the way to the altar set in the back of the platform. Dead Mud Kin, Marsh Kin, and Spear Beaks lined the path. The rotting flesh peeled and sagged from their bones. A fully grown crocodile, Ferocious Gators as some called them, laid across the top of the altar. It was probably the priest that cared for the temple before Exile overtook it. Its skull and ribs had begun to show. The fallen decomposing flesh was cleared away. The display was not merely a tactic of intimidation or a show of power, but the ritual the Bone Takers used to trap souls in their bones. I bristled, inflating with the Spirit.
Exile watched. With his blood red eyes, he tried to look into me, but my black mantel was not easily pierced. He looked around instead, feeling beyond his camp, incredulous to find I was indeed alone. Yet for all of his surprise and prideful rage, an excitement came over him. He made sure to place himself at the center of my attention. To stand with his head held highest. His black mane crowned him with a cloak of his own, thick and rough and sharp. Mine settled sleekly back into place, concealing my secrets with shadow. His devouring greed hungrily looked down at me, full of curiosity and an anticipation long since withheld. He smiled, full of teeth.
"Come to surrender?" he loudly proclaimed, silencing the roars of the others with a subduing pulse of Spirit.
I let it brush past me like a breeze.
"Or is the rest of the pack dead already?"
He was so satisfied, so confident, that his hunting party could not be bested because of its uniqueness, that I came so willing into his embrace. He tried to envelop me in his Spirit, but I came prepared. My soul's core was hard and solid and steady like iron. Exile's was hot and roiling and ready to erupt. I could not stay long. If I did, his Spirit would begin to soften mine and melt its way deeper into me. Better to strike with my full weight now.
"Your pack is many," I observed with a glance, giving nothing about his lost scouts and hunting party away, only the false praise he craved.
The creatures pulled back a little when my gaze fell on them. The Mighty Hena that knew better shrank from it. Ashamed and humiliated when faced with the true Spirit of the pack. They hated such light in their darkness. But there was one with a grey paw that could not look away from me. I could tell he had never been part of a real pack before. Most of his life was probably spent as a wandering young one. He was recruited by Exile before he could truly understand what the Spirit was. All he knew was the black starless moonless night Exile showed him. He never realized there was another side. One that created balance. I pitied him for this but did not let my gaze linger. I did not want to draw attention to him because Exile would surely feel it and punish him. I sharply flicked my eyes back to Exile.
"Your chaos will never keep them."
The darkened Mighty Hena snarled at this, insulted. The other creatures did not understand the true workings of a pack. The one with the grey paw looked around, startled out of his fascination.
"Yet you come to me?" Exile said, boasting when he should have been suspicious.
"The Spirit calls to me," I answered truthfully. "And here I am."
Exile's eyes flashed. His tail swept lightly behind him. He stamped a paw, holding himself back. His desire for me to join him was so strong that I had to change my center of balance to avoid being sucked in. An abrupt foreign sound interrupted us. It was all at once chastising and scolding and cruel. The words scratched at my very soul. Exile looked to the side as the one who spoke appeared from around the altar. It had been so long since I last heard such language that I almost did not recognize it. Yet never could I forget it. Vile and despicable no matter what came from their mouths, the Bone Taker's words were always a curse upon the Spirit. My ears would bleed if I listened too long. Having braced myself for this moment and carrying the blessings of both the river and the grasslands, my legs remained steady. My body did not waver as a Shaman walked out from behind the altar.
And not just any Shaman, but a female.
An anomaly so rare that I instantly realized the Mountain Cat's words by the river. There was not one, but two Shaman. The cursed energy I felt, the summoning of Banette, the strength of the evil that sought to destroy us, it all came from her. The matriarch of the bone rite. The birth mother of Bone Takers. The one no other Taker could kill. Clicking and grunting with rough and warped words, I understood all she said despite my strongest desire not to.
"You fool," she snapped, wielding her club as if it were an extension of herself like a claw or talon or stinger. "She comes not for you!"
She was too cunning to be fooled. The Shaman came up beside Exile. The Mighty Hena's instinct to kill her pulled at his lips, but he quickly lowered them with no more than a sneer. The Shaman, as destructively beautiful as she was, did not raise her club against him. His poisoned Spirit was still that of the pack and therefore, just as dangerous to her as I was. Together, I stood no chance against them. The Shaman looked at me, eyes laughing and daring and cautious.
"She comes for me."
Indeed I did.
"But she will not succeed," the Shaman went on.
Because they thought my only reason for coming was to kill her.
"Not in this place," she continued because this place was sacred to the Spirit. A strong place of power for good or for evil. One she had successfully harnessed for her own gain.
"Not in this life."
Because no creature had yet killed her despite the odds. Like me, she survived the Bone Wars. Her willingness to fight for existence and her prowess with the Spirit was as strong as mine. She must have been born on the darkest of nights, maybe even under the night opposite the rising of the great moon I was born under when the land was darkest. The day of us coming together was destined.
Seeing me unmoved by her unshakable confidence, the Shaman barked another command. Three Bone Taker hatchlings came running out from behind the altar. Their hands were dirty from practicing whatever perverse technique they had been shown. Because they were not strong enough to challenge one another yet, they wore the skulls of different creatures they helped kill on their heads instead that of their mother. I did not see the skull of a Mighty Hena. Their favorite accessory. Even Exile would not tolerate such a blatant threat.
My worst fears were true. The male Shaman I encountered at the river was the female's mate. The last of her harem. They were a breeding pair and the Bone Takers were rising from the ashes of their defeat. This temple was a cursed womb. Fed by the flesh of others. Even when void of feeling and empty of memory, the wild within me revolted. I howled, but the Shaman's laughter suppressed it. She swung her club, smacking her hatchlings to a stop.
"You have no power here, Mother," she reminded me, smooth and silky as a spider's web.
Step by step, she descended the high platform of the altar, eyes never leaving mine. I clutched my claws into the stone, grinding out holes in the rock to keep me from moving. Exile glanced between us. All of the creatures did, stiffening with the rigor mortis of instinctual decision. To run or to fight the moment the ever tightening tension snapped. The Shaman stood a few feet in front of me, unblemished, unaged, in perfect form as if time did not exist. Bathing in the blood of others offered such gifts. I could not tame my hackles. My eyes blazed, but I kept every muscle steady. I would give no clue as to my intentions. The pathway to the altar cleared so that none stood with us. The closest was Exile who remained at the top of the platform so that he could look down on both of us. Collected, but poised to strike in Spirit or body should something happen unexpectedly.
His guards, because he would never accept any Betas as heirs to his throne, remained at their respective sides, quivering in their courage to stand so close to a queen of the damned. Behind them, I saw the one with the grey paw, eyes opened to the light and the dark now that we stood face to face with one another.
"I waited a long time for this moment," the Shaman whispered as if she never meant to let the thought slip past her lips.
The world around us rippled. Not just in Spirit, but space, as ghosts and monsters from the otherworld moaned and wailed and pressed against the barrier to get through to this world. Some of Exile's pack fled into the water and grasses, already deserters. The stars above us stopped shining. All but one.
"I have searched a long way to find you," I told her.
My moment had come.
"Aren't you curious of my journey?"
The Shaman became more suspicious the more words I used.
"Of the things I have seen? The things I have done?"
The Shaman turned her head slightly sideways to try and peer into my Spirit, but my cloak of darkness protected me. All she could see was the wild and the wild had no desire to exploit. I could feel her probing.
"Would you like to see?" I asked of her.
The Shaman's eyes widened with a flash. Even Exile lost some of his pomp. No Mother would ever show such vulnerability. None would expose the deepest part of themselves to the enemy, especially a Shaman who could unravel one's sanity with a single tug of a frayed thread. Exile's jealousy flared. The Shaman loosened her grip on her club. She did not believe me, so I pulled my hood down and opened my thoughts to her, just a little. The Shaman snarled and laughed and reached with her club as if to prop the door to my mind open, but I unlocked the door only enough for a memory to slip through. A single picture. A message meant for the Shaman and no one else.
I showed her dead mate. Broken and mangled and defeated without a ghost to hang on to.
Then, I shoved the Shaman out of my mind as if with a blow, slammed the door shut, and slapped her back into this reality. She screamed, still reeling from the images I showed her, and whipped her club back, eyes and mouth spewing ire. She put every ounce of power she had into the swing. There was no creature fast enough to stop the attack. No reflex quick enough to dodge it. No power strong enough to endure it. Not even from me. So in the heartbeat between us, in the blink it took to close the distance, I glanced beyond her. She was not my future. She already fulfilled her purpose, and me, mine.
But there was still something I could do. For I was Mother and the Spirit of the pack was with me, always. And it was my duty to help it survive no matter where it found itself. My gaze fell on the one with the grey paw. I caught a glimpse of him beyond the Shaman's swinging club, and him, me. Because when faced with a true show of balance, he looked towards the light. His Spirit awoke and I felt his heart stop when he saw the light about to be extinguished. The Shaman's club swung through me. It cleaved through my image in a swirl of smoky shadow.
Doom Seers weren't the only ones that could create illusions and project their doubles.
I lost sight of the temple. Exile and his pack vanished. My Spirit rushed back to my body and slammed into it so hard that I fell over, momentarily unconscious. Sitting beside me and desperately clinging to my Spirit with all of his strength, Omega lifted me back into consciousness. The pack rose in a howl, calling my focus and attention and mind back to my body. I sat up with a start, remembering and feeling in a rush as I returned to myself. All of my memories came back at once. Their emotions overpowered me into disorientation. The pack rallied around me, still howling. I focused on those feelings, on the good, and found my way back to the present and our purpose. Alpha was there, acting as the anchor Omega had chained me to. I looked up at him, eyes still misty with the sight I had used.
"It is as I feared," I said, still trying to find my strength. "But all is not lost."
The pack went up in another howl despite the much needed stealth of our mission. Panting and exhausted with the task of sending my double so far with so much of my Spirit that not even the Shaman or Exile had noticed it was not me in true form, I struggled to get up.
"We must return to the grasslands at once," I warned, the only adult among such jovial recklessness.
"We will," Alpha said before he suddenly pushed me to the ground.
I would admit that the world spun too quickly for me and the second time it happened, Alpha had nothing to do with it. I fell again and he stood over me, keeping me down.
"But first, you must rest, and I will guide you. Your burden has bought us time for this," he said.
He laid down next to me and I laid back in his presence, unable to try for a third time to get up anyway. I was confused from my out of body experience and likely to hurt myself. Alpha then glanced at Omega.
"Come," he said, "and I will show you how an Alpha rests."
Omega had already learned the technique from me, but I was only one half of a whole heart. Without a Father, it was Alpha's job to show Omega the side of the Spirit that only males, especially Alphas, could employ. Omega quickly came and laid on the other side of me. The rest of the pack watched in awe and eagerness at such an opportunity. Resistance between them in this state was futile, so I let them embrace my Spirit and give it shape until I was strong enough to hold it on my own again. I closed my eyes and listened to the howls and happy cries surrounding me. Our voices may be heard by the enemy, but they also might be heard by another. And if that happened to be a single Mighty Hena with a grey paw ready to find a true pack, it was worth the risk.
