[Veltzeh]: 39.The Heritage of Humankind.Tales from Kyerrion.31

In the morning the seven femehans relaxed and played around until Afaihel came to see them. Ey sought out Krezagon, who was sitting around with Riyhneon.

"Good morning, sergeant Krezagon Korielter. Would you now wish to meet the council that handles foreign affairs?"

"Ah, good morning, Afaihel... I... yes, I'm ready to go. You said... who can I bring with me?"

"You can come alone if you wish, but if one of your people wants to come, ey can."

"Okay... um..." Krezagon turned to look at Riyhneon, who looked away.

"Umh. I would be so uncomfortable around all those far-walkers..." Ey spoke in Femen, not wanting Afaihel to understand, but realizing it was a rather futile attempt.

"Eh, yeah." Krezagon replied in Femen as well, also thinking that it was useless. "I think I will be. Hm... maybe Taikehel would like to..." Krezagon reached out with eir thoughts and Taikehel touched em back. "Would you like to come with me to meet the council?"

"Certainly. I will come to the um... 'front yard', if one can call it that."

Krezagon turned to Afaihel. "Taikehel, the far-walker, will come as well."

"Very good."

Taikehel met the two outside, and with that they were off. Vaalejo came to see them after a few moments. With em was a short and apparently rather young galanfetzcan. Ey waved at Afaihel and spoke to the two femehans:

"Good morning, Krezagon and Taikehel! This is my oldest child Maulen. Ey wanted to come see you."

Maulen looked a bit nervous, but tried to pretend ey was not. "Zine."

Vaalejo smiled a bit and said: "Ey doesn't know common Gomanian yet, though."

Krezagon smiled a little and said: "Hello, Maulen."

Maulen twisted eir mouth in a bit of a grin and asked something a little enthusiastically from eir parent. Vaalejo let out a snicker, answered and spoke to the femehans again: "Heh, maybe you would find this a little flattering. Maulen just asked why you had so pale skin, since most femehans are dark-skinned. Ey thinks you look pretty with pale skin." Krezagon and Taikehel both smiled somewhat surprisedly and thanked Maulen before they went off again.

It took them four hours to walk to the place where the council members were. Krezagon wondered why they could not just have handled the issue with far-walker abilities, but did not want to bother Afaihel by asking. Taikehel did, however, and Afaihel said that communication was still easier face-to-face, and the council would need to be sure of their motives and reasons when another galanfetzcan was involved. Scanning for such things over a great distance was difficult.

So they walked. Krezagon and Taikehel were interested in all the galanfetzcan buildings and people they saw and asked a few questions about them. Afaihel replied dutifully but was quite a lot more interested in explaining things about plants and made quite a few detours to pick out some plants and fed them to the femehans. Taikehel could not really have cared less about the plants, but Krezagon saw the usefulness and tried to learn and remember what ey could.

The galanfetzcan council members had gathered into a building. Krezagon did not think that it was a regular building in which people lived, but it was not a mayor's office or the like either. Ey was also sure that it was not specifically a building for the council of foreign affairs, because it was just as galanfetzcan-sized as the rest of the buildings—they would have built it bigger so that members of the bigger races could fit in better otherwise. Ey had no idea what the building's purpose was, and ey did not want to ask. Taikehel, once again, did not care.

Krezagon had expected the council to consist of at least sixteen galanfetzcans, so ey was slightly surprised when ey was only faced by three people. One of them was rather old—this far Krezagon had not seen a specifically old-looking galanfetzcan, but ey did not look special. However, compared to many old femehans, the galanfetzcan elder seemed to be in good condition.

The "meeting" was quite informal in Krezagon's opinion, since ey was used to the idea that femehans did things like this with rather strict protocol, even if ey had not previously taken part in them. However, the informality helped alleviate eir mind and the galanfetzcans were happier. Krezagon told them their issue, after which the galanfetzcans talked for a while and said that they did not know anything, but that they would look into it and that Krezagon should come back after a few hours. Krezagon spent the time well and walked around the area. Taikehel tagged along, though ey would rather have wanted to have sex with Krezagon now that they were alone, so to speak, or then talk to a galanfetzcan and ask how ey could better eir far-walker abilities. Unfortunately, ey was too proud or insecure to ask the galanfetzcans to speak with em.

The galanfetzcan council eventually summoned Krezagon back and revealed much of the plot to em. The galanfetzcan who was traveling with Tegafel was Availon Gandeleihei, while Gaoveel, the galanfetzcan they had erroneously followed earlier, was the last galanfetzcan who had been in Availon's company. The councilors obviously did not explain what it was that Availon was doing—the results of telling that would be troublesome or hurtful to one or all parties involved and convenient to most likely no one. According to Gaoveel, Availon had not come south at all, but had headed north and was planning on heading to the largest femehan nation.

Krezagon was fairly inconvenienced by the information, or the imprecision of it. Taikehel and the galanfetzcans knew well enough that no nation really held the title of the biggest femehan nation, but they had not assumed that Krezagon was aware of it as well. Nevertheless, the fact that ey knew it was barely news. The galanfetzcans assumed that the largest femehan nation nearby was Fetormana or one of the nations north of it.

Afaihel took the two ancods back to the zaila where the other femehans were. During the trip, Krezagon thought about what they should do, and did not come to a conclusion. Ey talked more about it with the other squad members, and eventually they decided they would just continue east, go through Tarakiila's southern parts, pass the area just south of Watery Mountains and enter Fetormana.



The next day, the investigation team left. Nearly two weeks passed and they eventually reached leaf tree forests again, and not too soon after that, saw where the Great River entered the depths of the mountains. They met femehans from the nation of Tarakiila and were told more vividly about the horrible tragedy where nearly all the members of the royal family had perished.

They reached the shores of the Great River. Riyhneon, Freppet and Sorifel insisted that they travel across the River to the island that lay in the middle of it, and so they traveled there to satisfy their curiosity. They traveled east through the island and then crossed the Great River again, coming back to Tarakiila. The areas here were ambiguous—they did not particularly belong to anyone. Communities of homehans and femehans lived there, some quite ignorant about the larger schemes of things. Indeed, the area between the Watery mountains and the Great River was harsh and no nation particularly wanted to declare itself the owner of such an obvious waste of resources.

There, among the leaf-forested wasteland, Krezagon and eir squad came across a backwater femehan village.

The buildings in the village were terribly shoddy and they wondered why no one fixed them—there were plenty of trees around and they were not of inferior quality. Only a few people were out, and they seemed to be idle and in bad condition.

Krezagon told Freppet to ask for the general information they needed. Freppet walked to the closest loitering young nicod.

"Hey. Is there a military camp in this village?"

The youth was quiet for a while and then said: "I dunno."

Freppet was fairly confused and went: "Uh... how about an um... the mayor's office?" The youth slowly pointed down the street and Freppet followed with eir eyes, but did not see anything special there, just a few more shoddy houses. "Um, which one..."

"Says 'Mayor' on a sign."

"Oh. Thanks..." The youth went back to being more or less catatonic.

Freppet went back. "Ey was strange. The mayor's office should be that way..."

They walked toward the other houses and kept their eyes open for a sign. The few older people outside stared fairly intently at them. After backtracking once, they noticed that one building had a very worn and old sign that barely had any visible letters left, and it most likely read 'mayor'. Krezagon knocked on the door, waited, knocked again and waited some more.

Eventually the door opened, and behind it was an annicod youth. "Who are y—! Get out!" With that, ey slammed the door shut and the soldier squad was dumbfounded. Taikehel said that the youth was just discriminating ancods, but that now ey was having second thoughts because they were soldiers, and ey had went to get eir relem, who was the mayor.

Then Taikehel suddenly stopped and said: "The mayor's amiwage is a far-walker. I don't think ey's in eir right mind, but I'm not sure. I won't do anything except shield your minds now." Krezagon looked a little alarmed and nodded.

After some waiting, the door opened again, and the same annicod was behind it. This time ey opened it more and stood partly to the side, with one hand behind eir back. The mayor, a past middle-aged scrawny nigecod was standing some distance away, also with one hand behind eir back. The wagecod was behind em, peeking and apparently scared.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" asked the mayor.

Krezagon raised an eyebrow and answered: "We're soldiers from Kervanela. We're on a mission to acquire a fugitive."

The mayor stared at Krezagon. Ey obviously did not want to talk to an ancod. "Ugh, so? What's Kervanela anyway?"

"...Never mind. Is there a place here where we could sleep? We can do some work in exchange."

"I don't know. I don't care. We don't need any help from YOU."

"...Right. Goodbye." The annicod youth slammed the door again. "What a strange village. I suppose we just better move on. Let's try to find a shop, though."

The soldiers walked around for a while looking for a shop, but did not find any. They were fairly puzzled—where were these people getting their food from?

While they stood around trying to solve the food puzzle, a jinhaliare walked from behind a building toward them and shouted in common Gomanian: "Who are you? You're not from this village!"

The femehans were obviously quite surprised, but Krezagon gathered emself and said: "We're soldiers from Kervanela. We're on a m—"

"Kervanela? What's that?"

"A femehan nation."

"What are you two?" asked the jinhaliare, pointing at Krezagon and Taikehel. "I thought toppendas had fins and stuff?"

"We're femehans."

"Aren't all femehans dark-skinned?"

"No."

The jinhaliare looked annoyedly puzzled. "Why does your voice sound like a child's? You look much older!"

Now Krezagon was annoyed as well. "Our voice doesn't change like that."

"Other femehans' voices change, don't they? ...Wait, are you again one of those new sexes I haven't heard about? Geez, what is it with you... Isn't one enough?"

"...Yes. Honestly, I think one would be enough."

"Well good. What are you doing here?"

"We're on a mission to acquire a fugitive."

"Who?"

"A femehan wacod ...a gray-skinned, limping femehan who looks a little like em." Krezagon pointed at Riyhneon. "And a galanfetzcan who was traveling with em."

"A galanfetzcan! Groshje, what? Where?"

"Um... they actually went much further north but we only found that out a while ago. We're circling the Watery Mountains from here and heading to Fetormana then."

"What's that?"

"Another femehan nation."

"Geez. What the groshje would a galanfetzcan do in the north?"

"I don't know."

"I bet ey's allied with some stupid femehan rebels and that other femehan you're looking for is a rebel! You aren't rebels, are you? You better be able to prove it!"

Krezagon was a little taken aback, but dug out the international permission paper ey had been given and showed it to the jinhaliare. The jinhaliare looked at it, but even Krezagon noticed that ey did not understand its purpose even though it was in common Gomanian.

"Hrmhr... right... fine." The jinhaliare gave the paper back. Ey then turned and started walking back.

"Uh... hey, wait. Who are you?"

"Not your business. You better leave as soon as you can!" Ey went.

After a moment of silence, Taikehel said: "Freghert. Ey's not a far-walker, but ey's been trained against far-walker abilities."

"What the heck is going on here?" asked Krezagon.

"I don't know, and I don't know jinhaliares nearly well enough to risk using my abilities on them here like this."

"We should find out what's going on in here. This place looks awful. Something has to be badly wrong."

"I don't see how that's our business. I want away from here."

"You don't need to take part in it. Let's go in pairs and ask the people what's going on. If any jinhaliare tells you to leave again, leave and go back to the edge of the forest where we came from. Let's meet there an hour or so before sunset."

"Krezagon, this is insane. What do you think you're doing? We need to leave before they kill us."

"I'm pretty sure I know more about jinhaliares than you do. And what, they'd kill us? We're in an alliance with them!"

"It's not like that's stopped jinhaliares from killing people."

"Eh, you're being overly paranoid. Go to the forest and we'll meet there..."

"No way, I'm not going to let you get yourself get killed."

Krezagon stared at Taikehel for a moment. "Let's go." Ey wondered a lot why Taikehel did not just make em go back to the forest right away, or modify their memories somehow. Ey did not dare to say anything about it, thinking that maybe Taikehel was too scared or busy to think about that or even reading eir mind about the issue—or something else.



They all got back to the edge of the forest by sunset and shared their findings. Some hunters and the jinhaliares occasionally brought game and other food to the villagers, and some people did cultivate the land, but very shoddily. The village was not really managed except by the jinhaliares, who the femehans did not dare to oppose. The femehans were either slaves, bastards or masters, and no one seemed to know why or even do anything about it, even though the slaves were more than able to overthrow their masters and obviously were not happy with their situation. Some jinhaliares lived in a few houses at the edge of the village. However, they had only seen Freghert.

Krezagon was fairly intrigued by the mystery. Ey could not figure out why the jinhaliares were here in the femehan village, apparently terrorizing the people. Freghert had not seemed like ey was on top of things either. Krezagon decided that they should keep an eye on the village for a few days at least.



For five days, the soldiers spied on the villagers who for the most part wondered whether Krezagon's squad was there to get back the "weird soldier" they kept as prisoner. They were also quite irked at the fact that Krezagon seemed to be the sergeant and thought that it was some sort of hoax. The villagers wished the soldiers would go away and not anger the jinhaliares. Taikehel refused to listen in on the mayor or jinhaliares' minds, because ey did not want to risk it. The others also did not risk spying the far-walker wagecod, who would most likely be able to reveal them.

Most villagers were unhappy about the jinhaliares oppressing them, but apparently had been long ago beaten into submission and forced to be passive. There were three jinhaliares in the village, but there had been more before. The soldiers managed to listen in on them as well, and they were mostly annoyed at having to stay there, though the reason was left unclear. Krezagon thought that their superiors had assigned them this "mission", but ey was still puzzled as to what the mission was. The jinhaliares also complained about the weird soldier and wondered half-heartedly what to do about the annoying femehan soldiers who were snooping around. They were worried that Krezagon's squad might be an official army unit, and that gave also Krezagon a reason to worry. Why would they be worried about about the legal army and keep a femehan soldier as prisoner?

On the morning of their seventh day there, one of the idle youths in the village came to the edge of the forest to give them a message. It read, in Femen, that the soldiers should come meet the mayor and the jinhaliare so that things can be sorted out. The note described the place as well, and it was the spot were the jinhaliares' houses were located. Krezagon did not really know what to think of the note, but Taikehel was quite sure that it was just a stupid ploy to get them there so the villagers could catch or kill them. Nevertheless, when Krezagon decided to go, ey came along. Before that, however, they moved their stuff to a new spot, a place where they would run through if they had to escape. Rain started pouring down when they were on their way and soaked them.

One young, scrawny femehan was outside in the yard shared by the three houses where the jinhaliares lived. When the soldiers arrived, ey mumbled that ey will go inside and inform the others that they had arrived. Not too soon after that, some villagers and jinhaliares ran out of the houses, attacking the soldiers.

Taikehel shouted, panicking: "I TOLD YOU SO!"

Krezagon ran to em, shoved em a little and snapped: "Take care of the far-walker and run away!" Krezagon barely had time to cut down the mayor who was attacking em when Taikehel told em that the wagecod far-walker was in a house, protected by a couple of archers. Krezagon ran into the house, knocked out the archers and killed the far-walker. There ey saw a dark hollow in the floor, and in the follow nothing, until at second glance ey made out the dark figure of a femehan. Then ey was attacked from the back and ey had to fight a large jinhaliare. Ey managed to kill the jinhaliare and joined the others outside, first by piercing a few of the enemies with arrows. Taikehel had ran.

Some of the villagers were there to fight with the jinhaliares, but other than the mayor, they were fairly lousy opponents and fell soon. The jinhaliares, then again, were much harder to fight—no one in Krezagon's squad had faced them before and they were quite intimidating in addition to actually being good fighters. Pouttel fell at some point, and when the fight was mostly over and everyone was tired, the last standing jinhaliare managed to slice off both of Freppet's arms before Riyhneon could finish the jinhaliare.

For a fairly long moment, they stood still, listening to the rain and Freppet screaming in horror. The rain mixed with the blood, coloring the whole area that much more morbid. Then Riyhneon went to Freppet and tried to calm the nicod down, but the only thing Freppet would say was that ey wanted to die.

Krezagon seemed a little shifty, and after a while walked to Freppet and asked, restrainedly and not looking at em: "Are you sure you want to die?" Freppet quietly confirmed it once again. Krezagon did not waste more time and cut open the veins in Freppet's neck.

Riyhneon was rather shocked and could not say anything. Ey sat there and buried eir face in eir hands. Sorifel and Leitsel stared at Krezagon.

Krezagon went over to Pouttel, who was only barely alive. Ey had lost a lot of blood and had a deep-looking wound in eir stomach. Krezagon spent a short moment trying to wake em up. Pouttel did still wake up. "Hurgh... K-Krez... I can't see."

"You... um... you're..."

"I'm n-not hurting... it means I'll die. Right. You... you're... it's okay." Having said that, Pouttel closed eir eyes and tried not to breathe anymore. After a moment, it was evident that ey had succeeded. Krezagon held eir face until ey was gone.

After a fairly long, ominous silence, Leitsel stared shouting. "This place reeks of death! Did they even make it to the spirit plane!? Where's Taikehel? We need to leave! I can't stay here a moment longer!"

Krezagon stood up and answered. "Shut up! You're a soldier! People die! We're alive and we should stay that way!" Ey glared at Leitsel, who did not shout back. "Gather yourself. You've been through this before."

Leitsel did try to control emself, but said quietly: "I haven't."

Krezagon was quiet for a while. "Now you have. And you're alive."

"Freppet isn't!" shouted Riyhneon, obviously grief-struck.

After yet another moment of silence, Krezagon continued: "Let's go get that soldier they were holding prisoner. Ey was in that house, I think." Sorifel and Leitsel followed Krezagon, but Riyhneon stayed where ey was, looking at Freppet's corpse. Krezagon looked at em and tried to decide whether it was better to leave em be for now, or take eir eyes off the corpse. Eir decision was that it was better to distract the gewacod. Krezagon walked to em and said: "Please don't dwell on it now. Ey's dead, that can't be changed anymore."

Riyhneon stood up rather violently and walked past Krezagon, pushing em roughly while passing em. "Because YOU killed em!" Riyhneon walked a bit further and covered eir face with eir hands again. Krezagon let em be.

The ancod went inside the house where the dark figure had been. However, now the hollow was empty. The room was messy and fairly full of stuff and furniture and the bodies of the archers were on the floor. The whole place smelled filthy.

"I think ey escaped..."

"Where?" asked Sorifel.

"I don't know..." Having said that, Krezagon looked to eir left and saw the dark figure again. Ey almost missed it and had to turn eir head again. The figure was standing against the wall and holding a dagger. Krezagon grabbed the figure by the wrist almost instinctively, surprising it. Krezagon pulled the figure out of the shadows and was faced by a scarred and fairly mutilated femehan gecod who seemed only a little younger than ey was. The gecod hesitated for a moment and Krezagon managed to twist eir arm behind eir back.

"What the..." Sorifel and Leitsel had not seen the gecod at all and only had time to act when the small battle was already over.

"We're not here to hurt you. We'll let you go. Actually, I guess you can come with us if you wish." Krezagon let go of the gecod, who still took a step back into the shadows and became quite concealed again. Ey kept a combat stance of some sort. "You're a soldier, right? So are we. We don't really know what was going on in here, but they attacked us when we were investigating things..."

"A gecod soldier?" went Sorifel.

Krezagon looked at Sorifel and waved eir hand in front of eir face before turning back to the gecod. "Do you wish to come with us?"

They waited for a long time, but the gecod did not reply. They all just stood there.

"Come on, answer," said Sorifel.

The gecod still did not answer. Krezagon continued: "It's okay. You don't need to say anything." Krezagon signaled Sorifel and Leitsel to go outside, so they did. Ey offered eir hand to the gecod. "Will you come with us?"

After a few long seconds the gecod took a step forward. Krezagon could not force emself to smile now, so ey withdrew eir hand and went outside into the rain. The gecod followed. Riyhneon stared at em for a second, but then they started running. No one said a word.