Kosumi
Legacy Name: Kosumi

I like the quiet of the temple.

It’s a sanctuary for me, a holy place where I come to feel clean, unbidden of the growing evil in the realm.

Davyn disrupts the peaceful silence as he trods in, breathing heavily.

“Father, pigeon for you.”

My eyes are still closed as I sit in with my legs crossed in front of the statue of the Great Owl.

“Patience, Carrier.”

He clears his throat and quiets down.

“Yes, Father.”

When I’m finished with my Silences, I beckon him over and break the seal of the letter.

Kosumi,
I inform you with deepest grievances that one more Owl Priest has passed out of the realm. You and your apprentice are expected to execute your mission with greatest haste, as you are the only surviving Owl Priest.
The safety of the realm rests on your able shoulders.
Do not dread what you must do. You will save them all.
The Owl

A weight descends on my weary heart. One more of us, gone before fulfilling the mission.

I’ve been dreading this. I was the youngest Priest to begin with and I’ve known for the last hundred years that I would outlive the others.

The last of us, the youngest, the least capable, commanded to banish evil from the tainted realm. I don’t know what to feel.

I whisper secretum into my cupped hand and watch as the fire dances on my palm happily. It’s satisfying, in a way, to watch the letter writhe and curl in the hungry tongues of flame.

When it has burned to ashes I close my eyes and wish for a second that it had never been a letter at all.

The maddening sound of Davyn clearing his throat cuts through the serene air yet again.

I glare at him and consider whispering secretum in his stubborn ear.

“Were you summoned?” he asks eagerly.

“Pigheaded carrier,” I say, “Summons only come on the dawn of each century. You should know that.”

“Well, what is it then?”

Silence pervades the temple, and I wonder why it’s not the same comfortable silence as before. But I know the answer.

“Nothing you need worry about.”

I catch a flicker of something in his eye. Mischief. The obstinate child.

“The sun has begun its descent. Get your fire. We’re hunting tonight.”

“Yes, Father.”

I catch his sleeve as he begins to stride away to prepare for the ritual.

“This may be our final hunt. We’ve been searching for this bone, the final one, for months. You know that. Are you prepared?”

“Yes, Father.”

I drop my voice to a whisper.

“Look at the moon, Davyn. Is she not brighter than ever, ripe for the taking? Tonight is the night – the bones will ring true. There will be no false leads, not tonight. I feel it in my own.”

He nods.

“Yes, Father.”

---

The crisp air nips at my paws. Beside me, Davyn is shivering like a waterlogged rat, lamp rattling in his hand.

I sit on the moist grave, cold air burning the inside of my nostrils, and hold my hand out toward Davyn.

He hands me the bones and the shaker and sits facing me.

I nod at him and he begins the chant while I shake the bones in the cup.

The glow of the city lights creeps over the hill.

When the chant is over and he has said the Final Words, I spill the bones on the damp earth between us. They fall into place perfectly, creating a tiny, brittle replica of the countryside. A map of the dead.

The bone that has settled with its carved side up tells us where to go, as always. When Davyn points it out, we look at each other. His eyes speak of terror.

The one carved bone is in between two jawbones that represent the Great Cities of the Wolf King. Davyn resumes his trembling, but this time it isn’t from the cold.

It’s because he knows, just as well as I, that the carved bone lies directly where The Cursed Hills lie.

---

Behind his gilded eyes I see gray flashes of memory and I know he’s remembering The Legend of the Hills.

In the ages of The Owl People, when humans and their Tangent Owls lived in harmony, The Cursed Hills were still pure, known pleasantly to all as The Rolling Hills. There, many people would go to perform sacred rituals and incantations to please The Great Owl.

But when the Wolf Men rose and began their reign of terror, the Hills became a burial ground. The soil there is tainted with the blood of thousands of Owl People and their Tandems who were sacrificed to the grinning Wolves. There, they were torn to pieces, necks ripped open and drained of the life in them to feed the growing power of the Wolf King on the Crimson Throne.

It has been centuries since an Owl Priest has gone there, and not even the eldest of my kind were able to remember the last time a Sacred Warrior was brought to life. Sacred Warriors are regarded as myths.

We have hidden for too long.

I wonder if Davyn knows that this is my mission – our mission – to bring a Sacred Warrior to save us from the Wolves. I’d like to think that he doesn’t, that he’s blissfully oblivious to the great burden upon us, but something tells me that he knows. Vexatious and galling as he is, he’s clever. A good apprentice.

Maybe he’ll be the one to save us all.

We sit in the silence of the inhospitable dark, staring at the map of bones in front of us.

At long last, he breaks the silence.

“Father, I’m afraid.”

I nod. I’m probably more terrified than he is.

After all this work, we run into something like this.

Quite the obstacle, if I don’t say so myself.

It’s infuriating – and terrifying – to find out that the last bone we need to bring the Sacred Warrior to life lies directly at evil’s origin.

Davyn is the first to stand and break the ritual, and when he stands the moonlight glints off of his lantern, illuminating his face.

A good apprentice.

“I’m going to make the call,” he says.

---

He heats his hands over the fire as he waits for the moon to reach its apex in the charcoal sky.

"Father, have you ever been to the Hills before?"

I close my eyes.

"Once.”

The silence is remote. He doesn't want to ask. Maybe he's too afraid.

"It was when I first became an apprentice. The Great Owl was powerful then, and he would summon the Owl Priests every so often to battle powerful Wolf Clans. My Priest was summoned to battle. It was futile, of course, even though we were strong then. There was something we lacked."The flames lick the frigid air."We apprentices were assigned mundane jobs, of course - only priests and Sacred Warriors are strong enough to engage in direct combat - and so we were there to conjure temporary hexes that would weaken the Clans in battle. As apprentices, our magic was very weak, so we weren't much help."

It's difficult to remember. Not because my memory fails me, but because I blocked it out.

"They were slaughtered. My Priest died and another took me in. That was the last battle. After it, only 13 priests remained."

He cringes.

"I can't remember what my first priest looked like, but I remember the Wolf that killed him. His eyes were yellow, like liquid gold."

I pause.

“The Great Owl rushed us out of the cavern but before I left, I conjured one last spell of my own accord, without consent of any of the Priests. I brought down a part of the roof. It killed 7 Wolves, including the one with the yellow eyes, but the rest of the Clan lived.”

The moon reaches its apex. He picks up the horn and makes the call.

The sound resonates through the countryside, nestling in the crests of the mountains.

---

My Tangent arrives in a matter of minutes.

We watch the owl as he flies, graceful, moonlight glinting off pure white feathers, an aquiline angel four times the size of Davyn and I combined.

He lands gracefully in front of us, stirring up dust and cocking his head to the left inquisitively.

"The Cursed Hills," I whisper, touching two fingertips to his forehead.

Davyn follows behind me, eyes wide with fear, and reaches his hand out fearfully, touching his fingertips to my Tangent's soft face.

Davyn skirts around his side, dodging the gaze of its rotating head and clambering up its back. Once we're settled amidst a flurry of soft white feathers my Tangent clicks its beak and takes flight.

In my head I hear his deep, resonant voice, wise as the Earth and older than time.

One must be wary of the Cursed Hills, Priest.

I breathe into his feathers, nodding as the air whips my cheeks.

One may find wonder, one may find woe. In the lap of the gods one does not know.

His detached voice echoes in the depths of my mind. I always wonder why he must talk in riddles. It’s maddening.

I become aware of Davyn's incessant tugging on my robe. When I look back I realize that he's clutching on to it for dear life, watching the ground blur past nauseously.

He looks at me with wide eyes and chatters,

"What's he saying, Father?"

I shake my head. The words exchanged between my Tangent and I are not for the likes of Davyn.

He shivers again.

"When I become a Priest, I'm never going to talk to my Tangent. Or ride on it. Definitely not that. They're terrifying."

He doesn't know that each Priest inherits the same Tangent of the Priest who taught him. Tangents are, as far as my order can tell, immortal. But they only bond with one Priest until his death.

Foolish nestling, the owl says in the reaches of my mind.

---

The Cursed Hills are darker than I remember them being. There is something here that was not here before, at least not in this magnitude - something dark, sick, festering, rotting. It's in the soil, in the light drops of rain that fall on our faces, in the dew that coats the young blades of grass.

My Tangent nests by a tree and watches with beady eyes as I begin the incantation, whispering invenies into my cupped palm.

Be careful, Priest. It is hard to find the true dark among such blackness.

I wave my Tangent away and order a terrified Davyn to hex the ashes that will lead us to the grave and the bones.

In the true darkness, there is no tomorrow, Priest. Be wary of the dreams and heed the pitfalls of the rolling hills.

I turn around and scowl the owl. He always disrupts my spells with his tangled riddles.

I breathe invenies once more and watch as my spell illuminates the brooding grassland.

The grass becomes translucent and beneath it I can see the bodies of my ancestors decaying, like some kind of morbid stop-motion play. I can hear their screams, hundreds of thousands of years worth rising to a deafening crescendo.

"Now, Davyn."

He throws the hexed ashes up into the illuminated night sky and we watch as a gust of wind blows them forcefully in the direction that they're supposed to lead us.

They settle on the ground, making a little pathway of ashes, and Davyn and I begin our trek.

Where it ends we will find the last bone we need for the Sacred Warrior.

This is what we have been waiting for.

---

The path is long and tedious. I wonder if the hills will ever end. Beside me, Davyn is breathing heavily.

We walk on, observing the sinister surroundings.

Even bathed in the artificial light of the spell the Hills are desolate, dismal. Little caves speckle the cliff faces on either side of us.

As I squint my eyes to look at one of the caves, I see a flash of yellow.

A brilliant yellow, melting, almost like liquid gold.

Like eyes.

I remember, I remember

I can remember what he looked like now, my Priest. His terrified eyes, the same hopeless gray as mine, as the Wolf with the molten gold eyes tore out his throat and drank.

"Father, where are you going?"

Davyn isn't important right now. The path isn't important right now. The Wolf should have died the first time.

"Father, please! The caves are dangerous! You have to stay in the light . . ."

And then nothing as begin to run and all I can hear is the wind whipping past my ears.

---

Be wary of the dreams and heed the pitfalls of the rolling hills.

The Wolf is in front of me, snarling.

He is the only thing I can see, glowing in the black of the cave.

His golden eyes are full of hatred and the screams of a million lost souls. The sorrowful cry of an owl pierces the night air.

I pull my sharpened bone dagger coated in cursed blood out of its scabbard.

This time, I'll face him in direct combat. No more spells. I'll taste his blood. I'll kill him this time.

"You're mine."

I lunge and all of a sudden I'm on the ground. Davyn is panting over me, far too close for comfort, screaming indistinguishable words.

"Why were you going to jump, Father?"

"The Wolf," I manage meekly.

"What Wolf?" he screams, "There's nothing here!"

He's screaming and crying for some reason and I roll away from him.

"I had to kill him, Davyn. I had to avenge my Priest."

"Kill who, Father? There's nobody here! You just ran off into the cave after nothing!"

Be wary of the dreams and heed the pitfalls of the rolling hills.

Inches away from where we lay panting, where the Wolf appeared snarling before me, the cliff drops off into vast nothingness.

---

As Davyn leads me out of the cave, I bring my hand out from under my robe and note the scarlet of tainted blood that coats my hand. The poisoned dagger must have pricked me when I fell. I can already feel the sickness spreading through my veins. There's no time.

Davyn turns around to make sure I'm behind him.

"What's wrong, Father? You look pale."

"Nothing you need worry about."

---

We stumble along the path wearily until it comes to an abrupt stop.

The spell must be wearing off, for the soil has lost its translucency. Davyn begins to dig.

When he feels something he looks to me, knee-deep in moist soil.

He lifts up the bones of something very small - a child - and sets them before me.

"Father -"

I shake my head to silence him and pick up the bones. They glisten in the hexed light and I can hear the cry of a child, muted by the abrasive touch of time.

When I pick it up, its head rolls out of my hand and settles on the ground forlornly.

"This is it."

He rummages hurriedly in the pouch at his side, removing a rattling package.

The bones. All of them.

He sinks to the ground and pours the bones gently on the wet dirt. I imagine that I can hear his heart beating from where I stand. I am sure that I can hear my own, pounding in my ears, making me dizzy. My side aches.

"Father, Father, Father," he says gently, spreading the bones in front of him.

I close my eyes for an indefinable amount of time and when I open them the bones are arranged in the shape of a human. He rises and takes the child's skull form my weak hands, placing it where the heart would be.

"Father, the chant."

My vision is beginning to blur, darkening at the edges.

"Hanc vitam . . ."

I cannot finish.

"You must do the chant, Davyn. I am too weak."

He's on his knees, looking at me with pleading eyes.

"Yes, Father."

He touches his head to the ground and I can hear him faintly chanting, the words drifting to me in the pale light of dawn.

"hanc vitam,
in omni gloria sua prima

ut nisi a vita,
ad vitam,

ossa et tu
sed lucidum erit

ut cunctos
ad summam, omnes illos

omnem malum
nigrum ima
ubi illi regnant in inferno;

et redde bona
et semel, et pro omnibus,

reducendum regem noctuam
ut suum ad æterna."

When he begins to say the Final Words to close the chant I reach over and grab his arm.

"It must be me, Davyn."

His eyes are confused. The poor boy.

"I can do it, Father. I know the Final Word."

I shake my head.

"Not for this. I would not let you know it."

I touch his tear-streaked cheek.

"Anima."

His eyes widen and his mouth begins to move. But I can't hear. It's all over.

Life. That's it, the Final Word. The Holy Warrior needs it. Davyn knew we were searching for the last bone but he didn't know what we would have to give with it.

Life. I give mine so others may have theirs. This warrior, the Sacred Warrior, will save the realm. There will be none after him. No evil.

I am content.

One may find wonder, one may find woe. In the lap of the gods one does not know.

I have found both.

As the light clouds my eyes I see the bones beginning to stir, to illuminate, to shine with a blinding light. The Sacred Warrior. And then he rises, slowly, the glory of his appearance too intense for my tired eyes.

And then there is nothing.

---

amazing story by raw (formerly)
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