#59 - Thank The Greater Sky

Teel tucked his notebook away and sat down on a bale of hay, just watching Ahrimaz on the bow of the barge.

The Hunter priest came out of his prayers, when he hit the end of them.  They were timed so that a priest didn’t burn himself out getting lost in the Divine.  He rose, and stretched, the fire on the altar burning itself out.  Then he looked at Ahrimaz, apparently lost in speaking to the Goddess, ice riming the edge of every hair, every hem.  He sat in a pool of water that ran over the boards and into the gunwales then on into the river.

“We need to break him out of that, or She’ll kill him with kindness,” Pelahir said and took off his massive fur mittens.

“Kindness?  I’ve never found Our Lady to be very kind, in this mood, at this time of year,” Teel said.

“Oh, you mainlanders!”  Limyé pushed between them, horseblanket in his hands.

“Wait, wait!  You’ll just get it all wet.  Let me help!”  Pelahir strode over to Ahrimaz, knelt next to him and put his hands up before his face as though blowing feathers off his palms, whistling a little heat into the moisture.

The Hunter priest nodded and held his hands up so that Pel could blow across them, too, a tiny flame, like a match glowing on his fingertips.  “Be careful,” Limyé said.  “You’re already tired.”

“Yes, Healer but it’s not a lot of heat that he needs.  Just a little.”

The water pouring off Ahrimaz suddenly billowed up into a gust, a swirl of snow and blew away as his cheeks suddenly went from pallid to rosy.  Limyé flung the blanket around him and both he and Pelahir wrapped their arms tightly around him as he began to struggle.  “No, no, She’s willing to let me die now, for all that I’ve done.  The other Ahrimaz has saved the Empire and I’ve done enough of what She wants.  She’s willing to freeze my heart.  No, don’t warm me up!”

“Shut up, Shit Head,” Pel said firmly.  “We still need you and you were desperate to save your friend from that world in this one, weren’t you?  Didara?  Is that her name?”

The setting sun broke through the clouds and the light sparkled on Ahrimaz’s eyelashes and face as the ice sublimated and blew away as vapour and his eyes opened.  He stared into Limyé’s eyes for a long moment, reading the resolve there to not let him die.  Then he twisted in the blanket to look into Pel’s face.  “Why are you doing this?  You don’t even like me.  You can’t like me.  If I die I’m becoming convinced that She will bring your lover back to you.  She’s not as cruel as people are.”

He buried his face down into the blanket and between Limyé and Pelahir they lifted him up and took him back to the cabin, feet staggering, slipping.

Teel shook his head and looked over at the Captain, who shrugged.  “Goddesses and Gods are not my purview.  But he just doesn’t seem to understand that he’s just done a miracle to get us moving again, taught a young priest something about how to pray, and connected to Herself, all at once; and now he’s despairing and wanting to die?” She shook her head.  “I read a story or two of our own Ahrimaz who had a tendency to demand too much of himself, because we demanded too much of him.”

He shrugged back at her.  “That Ahrimaz is just learning how hard it is to be a good man and he’s punishing himself for having been a monster.”  He pulled out his notebook and scribbled down the Title ‘Paying for it: Having Been A Monster’.

Charles, the Hunter Priest, took off his stole.  “He’s a good teacher,” he said quietly.  “I hope he teaches himself a thing or two.”

Teel couldn’t help but laugh.  “Like most good teachers he’s finding out that some students are pretty scorching stubborn about not hearing.”

**

Jagunjagun sent out a happy thrum that resonated well below the iti-igi ‘throat-singing’ but found that it was a harmonic for that.  Didara flapped her ears and added another level.  The human’s eyes grew round as their sound was reinforced and the ground began trembling slightly in time with their song.

“It’s good,” Ologbon said quietly to one of the lesser Stag people who wasn’t singing with, just sitting and clapping along.  “It will take their minds off being shut in.”

“It’s good,” the man agreed.  “Storm should break up tomorrow.”

“Oh, thank the Greater Sky!”