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Drip. Drip. Drip. The wind blew, all around, except here. Drip. Each was overloud. Drip. Filling the space entire.
“Solely to ward others from embarrassment, I’ll ask the stupid question. How did it get up there?”
Fali’s back was crescent-like as he looked upward. The bear was strung into a spread eagle, a rope to each limb, and each rope tied around a tree, ninety hands up, the height of five men. Branches creaked in the forest around it as the wind howled wide, but every time it threatened the circumference of the bear, it steered away, chastened. A long cut had made its passage through the belly, from throat to groin. The puddle of blood beneath it caught another drop, its homecoming sound slapped your ears, slapped your stomach where you kept the low-slung worry, the unsurety.
You had left Dancing Deer four days ago, and four days ago Sergi had told you of bodies. Animal bodies hung in the trees, a mouse, a squirrel, a badger, a grouse, a fox, a deer. You had hoped whoever this was would have gone another way, but you had found more. A wild goat, a snake, a kestrel, a wolf, and now a bear. This was a ritual in the old style, a layperson’s ritual. Twelve was Mother’s number and so twelve living things were to be killed, to cover oneself in death, to open the way.
A <span class="mu-i">Dormidor</span> had no need of such tricks, as they could go to the Nadir at will. The road was dark and deadly of course, but it was open to them at any time. Only one not of the craft would do this, but there were many reasons to go to the Nadir, some relatively benign, and such a ritual could be performed for any number of them. In time with the drip, drip, drip into the bloody mud, one fact kept falling through your head. The last of the twelve was always a human.
“<span class="mu-i">Cap, adiu</span>? I could start climbing but I must admit to you in confidence that I have a great fear of bears.”
“The bear is dead, Fali”
“Yes, yes…well I didn’t want to reveal this but I have an even greater fear of dead bears.”
“And if I said it was a man in an uncommonly convincing bear pelt could I suppose an even greater fear.”
“Alas…of an inconceivable margin, <span class="mu-i">Dormidor</span>”
He smiled, his teeth bright white and matching the brief rime on the afternoon ground. You could not help but smile back. It fell off your face quickly enough. The final days of Last Light were here. The cold baked the ground into shining faces, translucent, smiling. The world would become more dangerous. This was an inauspicious start. You turned from the small clearing and the bear above to look back at the smaller figure standing in the wind.
