[Veltzeh]: 39.The Heritage of Humankind.Tales from Kyerrion.2

Availon and Tyilan rearrived at Moorunla. They were wanted there and thus stayed hidden. They managed to assassinate the resident leader of militia and the next person in line for promotion. Having done that, they continued their way to north and climbed on the mountains to the west of them. There was supposed to be a "nation" of galanfetzcans there—it was not a nation as such, but the surrounding races, being so territorial, had insisted on the galanfetzcans drawing borders and naming the mass of land. So it was that galanfetzcans had a nation here, and the nation was called Hoiffetane-Tii, or literally "the peak of civilization"—humor was not lost in the name. Availon and Tyilan spent a week there and asked a few people if they would mind joining the mission. Two hunter-fighters, Gaoveel and Naalien, came along.

The assassination party of four headed west, where it was said that the jinhaliares lived. Indeed, they began seeing more jinhaliares, but it was still femehans' territory and their nations. They killed two femehan generals, three captains, five lieutenants and seven important jinhaliares in two nations. They were close to getting caught after two consecutive deaths of important jinhaliares because jinhaliares were good at noticing and calculating galanfetzcan tactics. The assassination party had to make a very quick retreat, but they made it. They traveled to east through Geckyila and killed only one femehan general. Winter was coming and traveling in winter was very commonly considered to be suicide. They settled in a garandal village for the winter.

Come spring, the assassination party moved east once again, to the femehan nation of Tarakiila. After they had killed a general and three captains, they noticed that the captains started surrounding themselves with bodyguards and far-walkers. The move was not unexpected, but it was still very inconvenient. The assassination party momentarily left the military alone and instead made a plot to kill Tarakiila's monarch and eir immediate family.

The party of galanfetzcans had been planning the assassinations for a few days, mostly sitting at the terrace of the house they were staying in—they could not go out much because they would draw too much attention to themselves, and the rumors about galanfetzcan assassins had not exactly faded yet. A cafeteria of sorts resided opposite to their temporary house, and eventually Availon noticed recurring troubled thoughts. Looking over the fence that was too high for em, Availon saw a femehan gewacod, deep in thought. Ey spent two days monitoring the gewacod's surface thoughts—the gewacod had been trained to block and notice mind-probing and Availon could not be sure how well ey would be able to conceal emself.

The gewacod, called Kairrel Farekiler, was a member of a femehan rebel faction that tried to eliminate the alliance with jinhaliares. For now, ey was a spy in the royal court, but even though ey had been trained against far-walkers, everything ey did was too big a risk. A far-walker spy would not have gotten in—far-walkers were thoroughly screened for loyalty, and while many far-walkers were usually less than completely loyal, it would be easy to notice a harmfully rebellious side. Kairrel had advanced into a position from which it would take too much time to be promoted again, so ey was as ready as ey could be. Spying did not require very much, but keeping one's mind empty while at work, trying to recall the information afterwards and then forgetting or not caring about it was a strain. Not too long ago, the rebels had decided that the monarch of Tarakiila was supporting the alliance too much and thus it would be better if ey was killed off quickly. Kairrel was not exactly fascinated at the idea of betraying eir country by killing eir own ruler, but ey also could not accept the alliance between femehans and jinhaliares. Therefore, ey now spent a lot of time trying to think up things ey could do.

Availon and the other galanfetzcans figured that they could use Kairrel to achieve their (and eir) objective, so one day Availon caught Kairrel in some relatively secluded alley so that they would not be disturbed or discovered. Ey introduced emself, explained eir mission and objective, apologized for having read the femehan's mind and finally asked whether ey would like to cooperate. Kairrel was a bit concerned and quiet, but eventually started asking more questions and clarifying things before leaning toward working together. One thing troubled em quite a lot, though.

"I've been able to act normally in the court before, the far-walkers haven't taken any interest... but how will I do that now? This meeting with you has been, well, mind-shaking an' I really doubt it would go unnoticed."

"I can help you some more with your mental shields. There are a few special tricks to it. Not many can learn them, though... it is possible to make anyone learn anyway, but that requires a bit of mind-modifying. Not many like that."

"I'll have to try."

Availon taught Kairrel the tricks of uninteresting thoughts. The four galanfetzcans and one femehan constructed a detailed plan of how they would assassinate the royal family. The most convenient way was to kill them all at once, but that was difficult to arrange since they were usually fairly unconnected from each other. However, a fairly special occasion, the monarch's birthday, was coming, and a lot of important people were going to gather in one single room to celebrate—a perfect chance. Kairrel was thinking of poisoning them, but Availon thought that it would be too easy to notice, since certainly somebody would taste the food or drink before the main bulk of them, and slower poisons were unreliable. Availon's idea was that they would construct a bomb; galanfetzcans had long ago learned how to make them, had considered them way too dangerous to use regularly and had never passed the secret on. Availon did not know how to make a bomb, but ey could get the information. Tyilan suggested that they insert some poison gas in it as well so that those who might survive the explosion would have lesser chances of survival and so that the building would be evacuated and a lot of potential culprits could escape. The two hunters figured that it would be wise to condition some innocent people to flee as well, in order to make it that much harder to catch the people who really were behind it. Kairrel was going to go back to the rebel cell that was in a nearby village and then flee with them to another nation. The galanfetzcans decided to come along.

The bomb would be effective enough even if it was small, so it was possible for Kairrel to get it into the royal court without anyone noticing. Kairrel wanted a poisoned knife along so that ey could kill anyone who saw it directly, or in case someone would try to stop em. Ey would drop the bomb down from an indoor window above the great hall in which the royal festers would be eating all together.

The monarch's birthday came and Kairrel executed eir plan. Ey succeeded, did not have to stab anyone dead and got out without much trouble, though the chaos following the explosion was fairly debilitating.

The galanfetzcans and Kairrel left the city, traveled to the nearby village and left off with a rebel cell. They crossed the border to Fetormana, a large femehan nation. Many femehans said that it was the largest femehan nation of all, and most of the rebels were of that opinion as well, but the galanfetzcans did not believe it.

In time, they received news about what had happened after the explosion in Tarakiila's royal court. The nation was pretty much in turmoil, most of the people in the dining hall had been killed and the poison gas had made the rest of them retarded, insane or mentally unstable. The only surviving member of the royal family was the monarch's two-year-old wagecodda who had lost both eir legs and one hand in the explosion and had breathed enough of the gas to be retarded for the rest of eir life.

After hearing the news from Tarakiila, Tyilan grew disgusted and refused to take part in any more murdering. Ey wanted to leave, but did not want to travel alone. Therefore the hunter Naalien left with em, taking em back to Hoiffetane-Tii.

Availon, the other hunter Gaoveel and the femehan rebel cell continued on their mission. They traveled across the lands of Fetormana and killed altogether seven high-ranking people and military officers, making them seem like accidents, suicides or carelessness. They conducted their assassinations with great care and seemingly no people noticed it. Some femehan rebels dropped out and stayed in small villages and some rebels joined along.

A rebel who had been with the first cell back in the village close to Tarakiila's capital city intrigued Availon. Ey was a femehan gecod and an ex-soldier. Ey spoke rarely, and when ey did, ey expressed eir needs or asked clarification on some issue. Eir mental shielding was strange and Availon had first not believed that ey was real and afterwards could not most often read even many of eir surface thoughts. Ey had not been trained at it either—some people developed shields naturally, though it usually required a some kind of mental disorder. The gecod's name was Tarkavinel Airahankio. The other femehan rebels, both ex-soldiers and non-soldiers alike, shunned em. They thought ey was wrong somehow. Looked wrong or ugly, had a wrong profession and never spoke. Availon tried to read eir mind once, but ey noticed it and attacked em. The other femehans were about to strip, whip, mindwipe and discharge Tarkavinel, but Availon told them not to. Neither of them explained the reasons for the attack, Availon because ey did not want to admit ey had purposefully tried to read eir mind and Tarkavinel because of some reason ey did not share. Later yet, Availon tried to talk to em, but Tarkavinel told em to leave em alone. Eventually Availon stopped caring about em. Tarkavinel was not a fighter or much of an archer either; ey was a military thief and spy, but ey had no social skills to go with that. Eir job was to get in, get what was wanted while hiding and get out. Many far-walkers had serious troubles noticing em; often they flat-out denied em being alive.



The two galanfetzcans and the femehan rebels had traveled to Grehainali, a smallish city. It did not have any outwardly important leaders, but the assassination group suspected that there was more to the city than seemed. They killed a femehan captain.

However, they did not get very far with their investigations. A few of the femehan rebels were walking on the streets, one of them a far-walker who suddenly noticed that another, unknown far-walker was reading the mind of one of eir friends. The far-walker rebel turned to the mind-reader who realized that ey might be killed right there and then, so ey spilled all eir information to everyone nearby as well as eir closest far-walker friends.

The rebels ran immediately, simultaneously telling all their friends to leave right now. They all ran and traveled forcedly for a week before settling in the middle of a forest to huddle. The first snow of the winter had come down soon after they had ran, and now much more of it was coming down. The galanfetzcans did not think the amount of snow was very big, however—where they were from, the depth of snow could be measured in house stories. The snow was still inconvenient and the rebels were cold and hungry. Now everyone would know them and towns would have special security for handling them. If they stole a lot from far-off villages, people would eventually catch track of it. They considered settling down in the forest, but figured that they would not survive. Availon suggested that they should travel to Hoiffetane-Tii, and though it was a decent idea otherwise, the journey was fairly long and they would have to travel through Fetormana's fringes again. In the east and north resided two other fairly powerful femehan nations, and they most likely would not make the journey through them.

They decided to head west, first over the Watery Mountains and then across the Great River that flowed from the Watery Mountains to the Great Lake-like Forest Ocean. After that, they could perhaps stop in Kervanela or go further north or west.

Of course, first they had to cross the mountains, which could be very tricky. They would have to count on the solidarity of garandals and nacrans, and while the two races usually helped people who were traveling through their areas, help from them was not exactly a law of nature. The runaway party started moving, stole what they needed from small villages and made their way toward the mountains. Winter was well on its way when they reached them, but fortunately the weather was tolerable. A couple of the femehan rebels decided to stay in the villages instead and one even asked to have eir memory wiped, just in case. After they had left the last femehan village behind, the party consisted of two galanfetzcans, one femehan far-walker and five femehan other-walkers. Availon had managed to ask and get instructions for building a small hot-air balloon carrier for their food and other things, and even to get them past otherwise impossible places.

Femehans had some lore about galanfetzcans and their airships from along the millennia. They were usually considered fantasies because the stories were so few, but some believed them nonetheless and most tended to agree that it could not be accurately known whether galanfetzcans indeed had airships.

Some of the femehans in the party asked Availon about the airships, but ey told them nothing. The hot-air balloon ey had constructed was a simple thing and the femehans did not have trouble figuring out the mechanism behind it. They asked why they could not build a bigger one, get in it and just fly away, and Availon explained to them that it would be seen from far away and that it was fairly impossible to steer. They would most likely end up back in Fetormana due to the winds.

Days grew dark and snow fell down. The snow made clear days annoyingly bright, but nights were technically lighter than in summer since the moons lighted the snow. The drifts in the mountains were deceptive; moving was always dangerous and it was often hard to know where to go. The trees and other vegetation in the mountains were adapted to fairly dry conditions—though it rained just as often as in other parts of the nearby lands, the water had the tendency to flow down the mountains and into the valleys and passes, where the vegetation was relatively thicker.

Garandals were fairly welcoming of the party because they tended to respect galanfetzcans. They sold the party food and different kinds of ways to heat the air in the hot-air balloon. The galanfetzcans paid back with information, teaching or far-walker services, and the femehans had to settle for doing physical work requiring extensive strength—garandals were even smaller than galanfetzcans, so the femehans' strength was quite felicitous. A few times the galanfetzcans were even asked to have sex with some garandals. Some garandals joined with the group for half a week or so since they were heading to the next village anyway, acting as guides while at it.

Things went fairly similarly with nacrans, though they were more suspicious and distrusting of galanfetzcans since galanfetzcans were so similar to garandals with respect to their sex system. They did still welcome the runaway party, though they only took their payment from the femehans—the galanfetzcans eventually ended up disguising themselves as femehans with their far-walker abilities when dealing with nacrans.

Winter advanced and the weather became colder. Snowfall abated, but now the thunderstorms were coming. Wind, sleet, ice, hail, lightning and chilling temperatures—not a good combination for a band of travelers. They would be even more dependent on garandals and nacrans in weather like this. However, every cloud had a silver lining: the views and sceneries were magnificent. The femehans were often fairly enthralled and kept praising it and keeping on moving. Even Tarkavinel seemed to like looking at the wilderness. The galanfetzcans had seen similar things before, but it was still a new experience every time.

The galanfetzcan hunter Gaoveel and Availon always slept together and seemed quite chaste to the femehans since they did not have sex while the femehans were in their company. The femehans, then again, had sex with each other quite freely, regardless of the galanfetzcans. They did have some issues, though, since they had among them one geniwacod, four nicods and one fairly inert gecod. No one really wanted to have sex with Tarkavinel, and ey did not seem to want to have sex at all. The two nicod ex-soldiers sometimes had sex with em, but Tarkavinel never seemed to particularly want or enjoy it—ey expressed eir unwillingness by attempting to shove them off but not really trying to and then lay quietly while they did what they wanted. The geniwacod, then again, was the far-walker, and it was usually creepy for other-walkers to have sex with a far-walker.

Availon was initially quite worried about Tarkavinel since ey seemed to dislike having sex in the first place and no one seemed to pay attention to contraception—having a child or even just being pregnant would probably be a death sentence in a situation like this.

They had two four-person tents to sleep in. One night, Availon, Gaoveel, Tarkavinel and one nicod called Karerrun were sleeping in the same tent, and Karerrun had just finished having sex with Tarkavinel and settled to sleep. Tarkavinel seemed annoyed above anything and was pulling on eir clothes. Ey had a lean, badly scarred body and eir right ear had been cut off a long time ago.

"Tarkavinel?" asked Availon, in common Gomanian. Ey wanted to speak to the gecod mentally, but Tarkavinel sometimes had trouble registering even harmless mental messages and could never reply to them. Tarkavinel lifted eir head and looked at Availon, but did not reply. "Are you alright?" Tarkavinel looked at Availon for a moment without speaking. In time, Availon spoke again: "You don't seem to enjoy ...that too much. Is there some reason why you let em do it?" Tarkavinel still did not reply and now ey also turned eir attention away from Availon. Ey held eir right breast for a while and then pulled on a tight shirt.

Gaoveel joined the discussion: "Can't you just push em off or tell em that you don't want to do it?" Tarkavinel stayed quiet.

"Or you could tell us... or Plietti. We would make em stop. You don't have to feel bad." Tarkavinel pulled on the rest of eir clothes and still did not reply. "Karerrun can't hear what we're saying, ey's asleep. Why do you let em do it? Aren't you afraid of becoming pregnant? We can't afford that now." The gecod stayed silent. "Please, reply something..."

Tarkavinel was still quiet for a long time but eventually replied: "Don't have anything to say."

"But, but... why do you let em do it? What if you become pregnant?" Tarkavinel was quiet again. "You frustrate me. Why won't you reply?" After a long moment of silence, Tarkavinel lay down next to the nicod. The galanfetzcans sighed frustratingly and gave up.

Tarkavinel said one more thing, however: "I won't get pregnant."

Availon sat up abruptly and went: "What? Why? You don't use any contraception... Are you sterile?" Ey did not get more answers out of Tarkavinel—the gecod fell asleep in the middle of one of Availon's questions. Both of the galanfetzcans were frustrated, and though they tried to get through to em again, Tarkavinel seemingly ignored them again. Eventually they too ceased to care about the passive raping happening right under their noses.

Along the long journey, the galanfetzcans learned to speak Femen without even using their far-walker abilities much. They grew closer as they shared their food, sleeping space, personal space and even thoughts, though the other-walkers were slightly uneasy about that, save for Tarkavinel who was still quiet and unreadable.

One day the weather finally started showing signs of getting warmer. Though spring was still far away, it would probably not get any colder. However, to the party's discomfort, the next day a bad thunderstorm brewed and the temperature dropped quite low. As a bonus, at evening, Werden shone right into their eyes as the storm-clouds failed to reach the horizon. They were climbing up the side of a steep cliff as two groups; four of them tied together at even intervals of the rope. The galanfetzcans climbed first; they were the best at it and if they fell, they were light enough to not pull the whole group with them.

They had climbed enough for one day and started setting camp. Gaoveel's group had started it since Availon's was still trying to climb; they had hit a harder spot and even with help from the others, the climbing was quite difficult. The weather started turning worse. Finally Availon made it to the ledge and one of the femehan nicods followed soon. Tarkavinel took a slightly longer time, and when they finally managed to pull Johelta, the last nicod, to the edge, the storm was rather fierce. Wind blew so hard that Availon was afraid to move anywhere; the gusts would have caught em. Johelta did not dare to stand up, but continued crawling in the snow while Tarkavinel pulled lightly on the rope.

Near the edge of the cliff grew a tree barely two meters high. Johelta was just a meter from the tree when lightning struck it. The tree was electrocuted and Johelta received a bad jumped strike. Ey stood up, the wind blew and ey fell down the cliff. The rope between em and Tarkavinel tightened almost instantly, and the gecod started slipping toward the edge. Ey tried to stop and pull on the rope, but it was fairly futile. The nicod between em and Availon shouted help, taking a stable position and readying emself for pulling. Availon circled the rock ey was holding on to, making a loop around it, hoping that it would help in case things got worse.

Tarkavinel slipped to the edge of the cliff where ey was able to stabilize emself by positioning eir leg under the rope—ey did not slip over the edge and Johelta's fall was cut short. Ey had just managed to position emself so that ey would see Johelta when the weight at the other end of the rope suddenly disappeared. That was the only time anyone heard Tarkavinel yell: it was a frustrated shout of surprise. Tarkavinel jerked backwards, turned around almost immediately and looked down. Ey barely saw Johelta fall and hit the rocks below. Ey heard Plietti, the geniwacod far-walker, shout out in grief. Johelta had died. Tarkavinel stared down for a short moment before crawling back.

"What happened?" asked Karerrun.

For a moment, Tarkavinel was silent and showed no signs of replying, but then stated: "Ey fell."

A few tears fell down Plietti's face. "Eir spirit is gone! Ey didn't make it to the Spirit Plane!"

They did not speak more. They could do nothing.

In the morning, the weather was calm and clear. Some snow had fallen and covered the old snow in most places. The seven remaining party members looked down the cliff from which Johelta had fallen. Tarkavinel pointed at the place where ey had hit the ground. It was covered by snow and one could only see the body with the help of a good imagination. A few tears fell down Plietti's face again.

"Did ey... have anything essential with em?" asked Availon. It was an insensitive, even wretched question, but if Johelta had had something important with em, they would need to go down and get it.

"I don't think so." Karerrun's reply was quite stiff.

"Go down an' see for yourself!" shouted Plietti. "You shouldn't disturb the remains of people who have passed away!"

They all were quiet for a fairly long time, looking down. Then Plietti finally said: "Farewell, dear comrade. May you find calmness in nothingness."

Almost immediately after that, Availon and Gaoveel muttered simultaneously: "Live and die forever in nothingness." They spoke Galan, however, so the femehans could only guess what the exact meaning was. The general meaning, however, was clear: it was a farewell message. They did not want to ruin it by asking what it meant now.

They were about to back down from the edge of the cliff when they heard something extraordinary: Tarkavinel. And Tarkavinel did not just say something—ey sang. The others listened with their eyes wide and remembered the words until they died.



Having sung, Tarkavinel looked up to the sky for a calming moment before walking back. The others stood there thrice as long, their eyes more or less flowing—so moved were they by the austerity and desolation of the words. Not one of them ever mentioned the singing again.



It took almost one and a half months for them to cross the Watery Mountains. They were very glad and proud of themselves after they reached the first femehan village in the nation of Kattormala. They were not proud of what they had to do there, however, since they had to steal from them. They traveled fairly anonymously through the nation and gave no clear sign of themselves.

They started getting very tired and malnourished before reaching the Great River, so they stopped their journey in a femehan village after all, got themselves some work and started settling down temporarily.