Firefly's Flight: Part I
©1999 - 2000 A. King
Other characters, settings and concepts are used with permission.
My eternal thanks for everyone's participation and blessings in the creation of this tale.

Chapter 1

Xocoyocopitzin, Last Born of the Firefly Line, plunged the dull end of her dagger into the mouth of earthen pot and scraped up the last of the corn gruel that had burned to the bottom.

"More, grandfather?" She asked in the fluid, Nahua tongue.

Collicoptli The Elder Firefly pushed his bowl across the mat and nodded for more. The Younger drew up the lumps of the morning meal and piled it high to nourish his brittle bones. The Elder wrinkled his nose and shook his head.

Copitzin, quite plainly, was no cook.

"I did join their ranks this last night," she solemnly declared as she scraped again, this time to clean the pot.

Not a sound escaped her elder's lips, save the slurp of cornmeal and broth.

She turned the back of her hand into the dawnlight to show the fresh gouge where she had nicked Lord Durlane's own dagger into the web of flesh between thumb and forefinger. The wound was ringed with pink where her skin had already struggled to heal before.

The old man's eyebrows darted up. "He wished blood?"

"I spilled it for him, my own the first to be shed."

Collicoptli gummed again at the gruel. "As it should be. What more do you know of this 'pack' you have been consorting with?"

"That I feel safe." Her words brought no reaction. "That I have many fighting friends, now. Was that not our goal, My Elder?" She poured a bit of water and some stones into the pot and swirled it counterclockwise.

"Yes, of all we want, I could not ask for more than that."

"Of all the causes, of all the petty wars and factions that swarm about this place, I believe I have chosen the fairest."

"I trust you have. I would meet your commander, then."

"The moment I stood in his presence, any doubt I may have held scattered like smoke. I will make it so for you, if I can." Copitzin looked fondly at the wiry figure on the stool outside their hut and dumped the cloudy water onto the coals along the edge. "He would be several times your age, at least, Grandfather."

"Then he has lived to be a most worthy commander."

"Yes. He seems that." Copitzin frowned into the ashes. "Perhaps you can tell me if my Lord Durlane is as much aligned to the way our Smoking Mirror as I think. Perhaps you can tell me it if is just my young eyes wishing what is not there."

"Perhaps, Young Firefly, you already see what my own eyes are too dim to discern."

Chapter 2

"Now, what was it Hally wanted me to explain as best I can, again?" Nathan D'Kamor asked later tha day, standing beneath the Gingko Tree where he had agreed to meet the newcomer for her briefing.

"I do not know what Lieutenant Commander Hally wants for me, she did not say," Copitzin's brows furrowed slightly. She was not sure she understood her first orders at all. "But I know what I want."

"Alright," Nathan adjusted tack and rested a casual palm against the treetrunk, gazing once up into its sparse branches, nearly stripped of their raiment of yellow leaves. "Tell me what it is you want, and I'll see if I can help."

"Everything. I want to know the words and ways of things. Within the Pack. So that I do not appear a fool, or make any one angry. I want to be right."

"Tall order," Ledwygg murmured softly from his perch on the stone wall, where he and the Firefly had been getting acquainted until Nathan arrived. "Take some time, aye?"

Nathan nodded, too. "I see. Well, I'm fairly new, myself, but I can tell you one thing of an absolute certainty: give Mourne respect when you see him, and wait for him to acknowledge you. When you'd like to leave his presence, ask for permission." Nathan may have been new to the pack, but that much he was sure of.

Ledwygg nodded in agreement with Nathan. "Aye. He be th' rule, an' all learn. Th' easy way or th' hard."

"I have had enough hard ways," Coptizin said abruptly with a capricious flicker across her gaze. "I want the quickest way."

"Well, it's best to do things the careful way, around DETH, in my humble opinion."

Ledwygg again agreed, gesturing to Nathan. "Then it be as he said. Mourne be as a god, an' a good one if ye treat him such."

"A body can be careful and quick." Coptizin stated, seeing no conflict in this. "It is like... much like running across river stones."

"Hai, a good point," Nathan said. "Just so long as you make sure the careful is in there, somewhere."

"Mourne's river oft runs red t' those who care not," Ledwygg appended after a short pause.

"I think I can do that. Be careful." Copitzin nodded in understanding. "Now I want to know: What are all the names of the kinds of servants? I am a Private!" The Firefly beamed, the low title alone welling her with pride. Her enthusiastic posture as private caught both men off-guard, yet pleased them both to the core.

"Well, there are a number of ranks. Let me see if I can remember the order..." Nathan trailed off, rummaging through his mind for the ranks.

"Yes. The order." Copitzin swung a braid behind her shoulder with a swat of her hand. "I must know it."

"From lowest to highest, just within the Minacia, it is: private, sergeant, lieutenant, captain, major, colonel, general, lieutant commander, and commander.

Copitzin pressed her fingers into her thigh to count the ranks off and memorize them while Ledwygg, the bard, blinked on.

"I know, it can be a bit difficult to handle at first." Nathan's tone seemed apologetic. "Just remember that currently, as a private, you really should pay respect to everyone else."

"I can do that, too!"

"Save fer the non-com types." Ledwygg cocked his head at them both. "Though, I'm fer likin' respect, make n' mistake on that."

"Are you a non-com type, sir?"

"Aye, that I be," Ledwygg nodded.

"I will make it a point to not respect you at every chance, then, sir." The Firefly's eyes flickered again with that curious color, content with her little joke.

"Aye then, but mark ye, there be no rule statin' that I has t' respect yerself, neither."

"Then we understand each other." Copitzin's chin lifted with a grin at her new ally, the bard.

"We begins to, aye."

Chapter 3

What Copitzin was unable to discern that dimly-lit night she let her blood for Lord Durlane soon unfolded before her in the meeting-place called The Black Sigil. It was a tavern, to be sure, but also a center where her Lord Durlane held court, as it were, delivering commands and conferring with his legion of officers on matters far too difficult to understand. Copitzin made a point to stand near her Lord and his officers at every opportunity, if only to better know their ways. Often still as a sentinel, silent as a slaugh, and listening always, she waited for something to happen.

She did not have to wait long for her patience to pay.

Soon enough she was needed, and she stood not an arm's length away from her Lord, her senses primed to defend Durlane and her pack-mates from a seeming spirit gone mad.

While her body ached to once again swing her sword, it was the steady and calm intonation of the Elder's words that kept the spirit safely at bay.

Above all the clamor of steel upon armor, obsidian upon bone, and cries for mercy upon the fields of war, this was what she had come to hear.

The Firefly's position within the legion became more and more clear as each day passed.

At the private's urging, the fierce mother-warrior Pharlen Tombs indulged Copitzin with a first match in chess. A pawn was like a private, she explained. They move forward first. They are expendable. But in this game, did the pawn cross the length of the board unscathed, there was also reward.

Copitzin understood all too clearly. She would have no recourse but to demonstrate just how inexpendable she could be. She was woefully mortal in compare to her comrades, true -- but as her ribs throbbed in pain from a razorclaw slice earned from the werecat Kirha in a spar, she soon learned beneath Nathan's healing hands that mortality was indeed only a relative thing.

Chapter 4

"How has the day treated you, Copitzin?" Her Lord Durlane inquired, his voice barely above a whisper.

"She has treated me well, my Lord," Copitzin stepping nearer so that she would not have to ask him to speak aloud, as was not his way. Her mortal heart still thudded with the effort of her early evening run, and surely was a telltale weakness in his keen Kal'aire ears.

"And what knowledge has this day granted you? You seem to have traveled long this night -- I should care to be audience to all you might have gleaned."

"Knowledge that our Nathan D'Kamor is a fine healer, My Lord."

"Wounded?" The Elder's ashen brow flickered up with what Firefly thought might be concern.

"Yes. And in that, I have learned that I am no match for a beast the size of Kirha. Yet."

"Perhaps I should spar the werecat at some point. It would be an interesting experience." Durlane's talons tapped together once, yet left no hint as to precisely how he might go about such an encounter.

"I recommend it, my Lord." Copitzin stood still as an officer joined Durlane at his table, only her eyes roaming to study the man.

"So then, Copitzin -- from your words, I take it you suffered defeat?"

"Yes, my Lord." Her chin tilted up with the report. "I expect many more."

"Good. It finds my favor that you do so. To know defeat is to know humility, and gain further knowledge on how to defeat an enemy the next time. I find it favorable that you do so with both honor and strength of character."

"I do not fear defeat. Through the grace of the Gods I may defeat this Kirha yet," predicted Copitzin. "He is a worthy match."

"Defeat should not be feared, in its own element," Lord Durlane offered, rising to excuse himself of their company. "Being defeated and learning nothing from the exchange should be feared. That is the shadow of ignorance."

The Voraath warrior Aurethaen snorted, in an ill mood as he shoved the Sep'aak into its bone sheath, and the Kopath back into its leather hoop. "I am angered." He darkly stated, regarding the slaughter outside the door of the Black Sigil. "Filth from the spirit world has taken a young female human, and cleaved her in half. Duur-math Irkhaim and myself could not stop it. Even my Sep'aak could not injure it long enough to stop it." The pause between was enough to raise hair on the back of Copitzin's neck. "Next time, I will send him back to the Spirit World in great pain and suffering."

The giant stepped further into the tavern and crossed his thick arms, glaring down at the two children that remained. Their food-battle had been only in play until the hulking Voraath took a personal interest in its cessation. "You would be wise to leave. Now." He placed a hand upon the bone of his Sep'aak, with the implication that if the filthy Raptmere spirit outside did not dispose of the children in a like manner, Aurethaen certainly would in his own way.

The children scattered and ran, their previous laughter caught short in their throats.

Without as much as a word, Copitzin reached to set the chairs the children had upset back on all fours and methodically crisscrossed the tavern as a warzone to clear it of mines. Lore, the one who seemed to do most of the cleaning, was not yet about for the duty. Left rotting, the smattered egg and potato would only worsen, so Copitzin wrung a rough rag to swipe up the missile remains.

"Bah." Aurethaen regarded the mess around them. "We fight devils and ghosts, and simpering Po-tak make waste of food. "You are honorable, Copitzin, for cleaning after wasteful fools. Come, let me help you." The Voraath, not above cleaning after children himself, drew a rag from the basin and began wiping down the bar in turn. Were the bar the Raptmere's skull, he would have churned it free of flesh.

"Would you reach the tall parts, sir?" Coptizin indicated the sticky mess high behind the bar.

"Do not call me sir. I am Aurethaen and that is all I am."

"Each has a way to be called, and so I will remember it," Copitzin amended, bending to her knees to swipe beneath a table and concentrate on the task. Not long, and her thoughts wandered. "Aurethaen," she grinned in saying it, looking up to the golden giant.

"Yes, She who is named Copitzin?"

"I would like to see your Sep'aak, some time. I am sorry I did not get to see you chase the spirit with it just now."

A sudden Thwack! and the gigantic, brutal blade was planted into the wood before her pile of eggshells. "You may see it as you like. You are trusted," Aurethaen declared.

Copitzin's eyes, round and ripe as harvest moons, trailed up the bright curve of the blade. She had seen the mighty sword in passing, yes, but never so close. She rose and wiped her hands upon another damp rag, then tentatively reached to touch the bone handle, still warm from his own clasp only moments ago. "You are kind for the honor," she whispered in near disbelief, bracing to pull the blade from the wood. Breath escaped in concerted, effort-laden sounds as she twisted the blade slightly to loosen the splinters around its base.

She did not know how many minutes passed as taverngoers curiously watched her struggle to lift the Sep'aak -- she only heard the sweet release of steel from wood as the blade was at last lifted back into her bewildered hands. She staggered back with the sudden movement and braced the sword with elbows to her chest, then hoisted the blade higher into a more comfortable, balanced position.

A low whistle came from somewhere behind the compact woman as she settled into a stance.

"Steady," Aurethaen advised. Golden hands easily as large as her entire skull reached from behind and gently guided her two-handed grip into position. "You must balance it as you would balance a claw to gut your enemies."

Copitzin released the breath she'd been holding and adjusted her entire stance to support the new grip. "As a claw," she nodded, eyes trained on the far wall in concentration.

"A Sep'aak is the Voraath's weapon, and shield. It's teeth devour flesh, but may also rip an enemy's sword from their hand."

"Yes." She agreeably rotated the toothsome blade, corresponding the row of teeth to the series of obsidian blades on her own weapon. An enemy's blade could easily fit between the teeth, then be twisted to wrench the sword from hand -- or rip shoulder from socket, given the right angle.

"Swing using your wrists, not your arms. Allow your arms to give it the bite to cleave the Enemy's skin, but not to guide it." The Voraath instructed with surprising care, lightly adjusting her stance or grip with a nudge. Her limbs were as pliable as clay, sturdy as steel.

When his hulking body cleared, Copitzin flicked the weapon down in an arc with her wrists -- a tentative motion that slowed before it could clumsily hack a table-leg in two. Her nostrils flared wide with the pleasure of the movement, however awkward it may have seemed. What she would have not given for the thrill of cleaving a pumpkin to pieces, right then!

She turned, hefting the sword up again before her in an experimentally defensive stance, the shadow of Aurethaen completely enveloping her as a cloak. Her enflamed eyes locked with her worthy partner Kirha, the cat! Copitzin grinned from ear to ear, regarding the bastet. "How do you like my claw, Kirha?" She could not help but chuckle with joy at the saying of it.

"Looks pretty sharp," Kirha said. " 'S it heavy?"

"Stars on high, is it ever," the Firefly grunted, though it did not seem as heavy as before.

"It is not heavy, for a Voraath Warrior, male," Aurethaen remarked with a grim smile as the student lunged forth, shifting her weight, following where the blade required. She seemed suspended in a jar of honey with each movement, though it was a struggle that she clearly enjoyed.

"She's not a Voraath warrior," Kirha observed, "though just the sight of a blade that big would probably scare off some folks."

"Duur-math Copitzin is strong in spirit. She does not need a Voraath's strength."

"She's damn fast, too." Kirha regarded his adversary from the eve before. She had lost the spar and shed first blood, true, but not without a fair fight. Understandably, she did not seem so fast today.

"Do you think the wanting makes it easier?" Copitzin asked, nearly breathless.

"Yes. If you wish to wield the Sep'aak badly enough, you will find a way." He waited for her concentration to focus on his face, then made a motion to guide her through a practice swing, which she mimicked eagerly. "When you wield a Sep'aak into battle, it is for your enemies to fear its bite, you must show them you do not fear using it, nor fear their blood upon your steel. Make them fear--it sorts the worthless Po-tak from those who would truly give you Honorable battle."

Firefly swung the weapon again and released a fierce noise with the effort, her lips drawn back to bare teeth. It seemed even the smallest movements, in concert, helped ease the awkwardness.

"Yes!" Aurethaen encouraged with a proud smile. "Let them know that you bring Death with your Sep'aak. You must show them that you mean to destroy them."

"The idea is to scare the hell out of 'em, right before commencing with the dismemberment," Kirha advised, too. Firefly's eyes flicked capriciously to his, and lit with the lantern-flames that promised she'd relish the chance.

"It depends who the Voraath faces in battle. One does not dismember an honorable foe, but rather allows their gods to take their body. For those who fight with dishonor, their stomach is torn from their body, while they still live, and they are made to wear it, so their final breaths are of drinking their own bile and their dishonored face is hidden from their gods."

"May the Gods pass you as common vulture-meat, Po-Tak!" Copitzin erupted in a thick, commanding threat. She circled and swung the blade in full arc again at the air, electric with energy.

"You would make a fine Voraath." Aurethaen nodded in praise at the adept curse. Copitzin brought the weapon to rest, planting the tip into the floor as she leaned into it for strength. The giant wove fingers through his own plaits to locate a single bead and remove it from its lock. "You have done well, Duur-math Copitzin," He murmured, placing the bead within her smaller hand. "Wear this with honor, Duur-math Copitzin. You are a Voraath warrior in my eyes."

Firefly blinked in appreciation at the token of esteem and wrapped her fingers tightly around it. "My thanks to you for the chance to try."

"You have not tried. You have done. This brings you honor, and tales to tell your children and their children." He took his blade back in hand and sheathed it with a kiss of iron to bone.

Copitzin closed her eyes to savor the sheer exhilaration of the moment, then reached behind her to unloop the tip of her own weapon from the strap across her back. The wooden club felt as a willow switch in her hands in comparison. She whisked it once through the air and chuckled before examining the end, where seven lean leather cords sprayed forth like feathers. She fastened the bead to a thong with a secure knot and slung the weapon back upon her back, enjoying the clack-clack noise the bead made against the wood when she moved. It would remind her of her Voraath ally Aurethaen.

"Maybe some day we will have a re-match, Kirha." She smiled up at the werecat, eyes dancing with the prospect. Kirha raised his own slender sword in salute.

It would be an honor for both, indeed.

Chapter 5

Pung! Tonk! Thuk! Clak!

Copitzin shifted her focus to the next three rocks in her path and jumped solidly from one to the next, each footfall planted with a satisfying percussive sound. The unbroken rhythm of the stone drums pleased something deep inside her -- running the river rocks was so much more like dancing than her usual course along the unbroken land outlying the city. There was something comforting about the nearness of the water and reeds that tempered her spirit as she coursed the river's edge.

The Firefly jumped from her rock to a sandbar that cleft the water in two, then picked out a confident path to the opposite side. Boots dug stairs into crags along the mossy bank as she stepped up to the small grove of trees that sheltered the broad brittlegrass meadow beyond. She and Ledwygg the songsmith had run these rocks and stood in this meadow not two nights before, he wet with contented defeat and grinning from the playful simplicity of her game. She had made it look so deceptively easy, but the rocks were wobblier than they seemed and the waters below a chilling embrace.

The bard had demonstrated his sudden fondness for the new private by wrapping her in a curious bear-hug, yet she cried aloud in surprise that night, warning him to be mindful of the blades strapped to her back lest he slice a palm with unchecked affection. In truth, she had also felt the Earth move beneath them, much as a ripple disturbing the surface of a lake. The movement had unsettled her precisely when she was beginning to feel at ease.

Wasn't that always the Earth's way?

And so this morning she pushed her way through the brittlegrass, ears alert and listening for the low rumble and sucking sound that so often preceded an apparition.

She paced the meadow for an hour or more, even felled a dove and wrung its neck to nurse the Glutton up with its blood, yet no sound or sensation came.

Chapter 6

Copitzin was far more used to stunning men senseless with her sword than by stunning them speechless by simply being the one known as Firefly. Never in her eighteen years had a man been so gently persistent in his attentions upon her -- and so Ledwygg's interest in the Firefly seemed amusing, if not a little frightening, when even he seemed unable to know what to do or say next. She was assured in her morning runs with Private Lore De Gannis that the bard's affection was harmless -- in fact she was lucky, Lore thought, to not be in want of a partner at all.

Ledwygg was a worthy companion indeed, mostly because he made the Firefly laugh. With all the seriousness she handled her affairs as an Enforcer, her time in leisure with the bard became more and more a necessity. The poet's patient way had already helped her to choose her words with more care, and to choose from a broader menu of them as her means of expression moved less from her animated hands and more to her able mouth.

And so she allowed him to hold her hand at times, in these idle hours.

When the other Enforcers did not seem to notice nor regard her as a chicle-chewing whore for allowing it, she perhaps allowed it a little more.

Ledwygg had the gift for song, and while he had yet to sing for Firefly there was no doubt in her mind the honeyed tone of his speaking voice would pour wholly into his art. It seemed as if the man were singing, always, the way his words ran together at times. Understanding him required her total attention, and Ledwygg certainly didn't seem to crumble under the earnest intensity of her gaze.

Again her patience paid, and she did get to hear him sing one night -- caught him in a complex and syncopated composition that kept his fingers drumming in time upon the bar at the Black Sigil. She did not recognize a single word that came from his mouth but it was a beautiful thing regardless. She quietly drew up a chair to listen, reluctant to startle his song. When he turned to greet her, he did not drop a beat.

"Hello." It was a simple word, woven naturally between the round tones that rose from his mouth.

"Hel-lo!" She singsonged back, trying to keep time with the unfamiliar tune, delighted that he did not stop. It was a joyous, life-affirming song that stirred her without understanding, so when he reached to clasp her hand and let the song run its course, she knew the sentiment of it, at least.

"I think there are not enough songs like that here," she remarked as his tones dwindled down. "Is that one of your songs?"

" 'Tis now just born, that one."

"You were drum-dancing, too, with your fingers." She happily wriggled hers among his.

Someone called the bard from behind, bidding him to mind the bar.

"Oi? Who speaks at m'self, then?" Ledwygg looked over his shoulder and turned upon his stool.

"Dare'chon Dur'lane, son of Mourne and Champion of the Enforcers." The younger Durlane canted his head politely at the two of them. The Firefly's fingers flew back into her lap just as quickly as they had arrived.

"Ledwygg. Son of no one as I know of, an' taleweaver-private t' yerself an' me packmates."

"Know the name," Dare said wryly. "Guess who does the paperwork when Mourne doesn't have a moment to?"

"I'm guessin' that'd be yer own self, sir. M'condolency."

"I thought you were non-com?" Copitzin asked lowly as their commander turned, his attention drawn elsewhere.

"I were. Anymore, I be ... I be com. There been a change."

"Ah?" The Firefly blinked. "And what does this mean?"

"Means I be a private now, same's yerself." He clapped her lightly on the shoulder, as any other soldier would have. "Near's I can figger, I still be taleweaver as well, but I'm not fer knowin' sure on that."

"A fighting private?" Copitzin quietly asked.

"A singin' private an' a fightin' bard. Aye an' amen!"

"I see." The silence that followed puzzled them both. "We might fight together, then?" She finally asked.

"Aye, may be so. Side b' side, though, never face t' face."

She tipped his pitcher of ale forward and smelled it experimentally, taking time to digest this new information. "We could cross swords for fun some time. Maybe?"

"We might, at that!" He grinned bravely. "Anytime ye please."

"If we are to fight side by side, I would be assured that you are able," she teased, looking up from his drink. "...which I am sure that you are."

"Sure as I'm grateful fer yer faith. But I'd just as soon show ye m'self," he winked.

"I would like that." She narrowed her eyes playfully back down into the ale, inspecting it.

"This one be mine." Ledwygg wrapped a protective hand around his ale and drew it toward his chest.

"Then pour me one just as large, tender. It does not smell that bad."

"As ye please." He rolled over the bar, flopped to the tending side and filled a pitcher halfway with dark ale.

"Is it strong?"

"Taste fer yerself, an' tell me. I thinks it sweet enough."

Firefly lifted the pitcher and drank deeply, bringing it down only to leave a thick foamy mustache across her upper lip. The bard swiped at it and smiled. "I think it is de-licious," she proclaimed.

"T' our health, then."

"To our health." She raised the pitcher in salute, and bid him to instruct her in the art of phrasing the toast, for which he was all too eager to oblige.

Chapter 7

Copitzin had given the matter a great deal of thought, and so raised her pitcher solemnly and declared in grave tones:

"May the insects of the underdark be swift in their meal of the fallen!"

"That... that be poetic," Ledwygg noted as his pitcher was raised again to toast hers, though the sentiment of her statement was a bit unsettling. She peered into his near-empty ale where only dregs remained.

"Do you want more?" She asked beneath her wrist, raised to stifle a profound burp from bowling him over.

"Well, what's yer pleasure now, Copitzin? Drinkin', or tryin' yer blade t'me?"

"I would do both. Are you in a hurry that you may only do one?" She blinked innocently up to her drinking-partner.

"What'd ye be after first, then?" The expression returned was just as silly, but upon the second asking she seemed to weigh the choices posed before her quite seriously. "Hah. Ye has t' pick one, lass."

"I choose my sword. Against yours." She tap-tapped the Voraath bead against the tip of her wooden maccuahuitl.

"As ye will. But we'll need t' quit the inn. Dare won't take too kind t' horseplay inside these four walls."

"Why are the cats allowed to fight inside and we are not?" She looked indignantly to the brawling creatures that had chased each other's tails only minutes before.

"Because the cats be superior." The Lady Tygrrress declared, in the haughty way only a cat could.

"You can horseplay, just don't get carried away. I don't mind that, but I do mind, as the highest commanding officer here, outright violence for no particular purpose."

"Oh, I have purpose, Champion Durlane." Copitzin narrowed her eyes again at her opponent and smiled.

"Bet you do," Dare whispered. "And damnit, call me Dare."

Copitzin nodded and pushed tables aside with her hips, clearing an arena near the stage with Ledwygg so they had room to spar on both levels. Every now and again she studied her opponent as he moved, sizing him up and seeing him with eyes afresh now that he was a private. He seemed to take great care in warming up, weaving his blades before him until they sung through the air with his dance. Copitzin merely tapped her own clublike sword to her instep and stood stone still, watching him with equal parts fascination and amusement. He had yet to see her fight and she was not about to give him a taste

"Want'a wrap th' blades, or trust as we are?"

"I trust you. And wrapped, how could we spar until first blood? Would you like me to beat it out of you instead?"

"Suits me." He synchronized his feet to the swinging time of the blades. "Till one of us be blooded, is it? Aye, that'd be steeper a challenge with no blade t' cut with."

"I give it gladly," she declared, rolling her shoulders. "Ready?"

"Ready 's I'll be, I'm fer thinkin'."

Not a half-beat passed after her nod of affirmation, and the obsidian club sliced upward for his midrange with a low, glassy sound. The rest of her body followed through like a whip and recoiled from the feint to deliver a second blow, missing as he moved to thrust a steel blade both afore and aft. The first slice was deflected along the smooth, flat side of her club; the steel seemed to slide along the polished wood all too easily, then just when the motion felt predictable, the club was twisted to try and catch the steel between stone teeth. Ledwygg wrestled his longsword out of the grip and defensively crouched away. A chip of the glassy stone flaked from the melee and skittered across the floor between them.

Lanternlit eyes raked her friend up and down as the bard focused on the exposure the stance gave her shoulder, unguarded. A single boot swiped out to distract her efforts to block below, while the longer of his blades arced down for her upper range. Her sword shifted defensively to angle across the shoulder and deflect the impact of the attempt. The plan was to convert the energy to her advantage...

... she thought all was in proper position: her angle... her weight... her state of mind...

.... until a sickening, splintering CRACK! oozed across the air of the Black Sigil's great room.

Chapter 9

Copitzin's eyes flew wide with disbelief.

For the first time ever, the comfortable wooden maccuahuitl felt positively hollow in her hands. Nathan D'Kamor winced with sympathetic pain as the wood buckled beneath Ledwygg's blow.

Ledwygg's teeth clenched in anticipation of the bone-chattering impact of sword to sword, but released quickly, flabbergasted by the give of her weapon as it absorbed the impact for her shoulder with its own life. He lifted his steel blade from its bite into the wood and recoiled across their sparring-space. His eyes narrowed in delight once he realized precisely what he had accomplished.

The shaft of her weapon hung limply at a sick angle like a broken arm. Only a few hardy fibers held the broken sword together, threatening to shred in two as Copitzin slowly lowered her weapon to examine the damage. Eyes raked over at Ledwygg again, ablaze with equal parts fury, humility and awe.

"You....

broke...

my...

sword!"

She howled hoarsely.

Copitzin lunged for Ledwygg, who reeled back with blades raised to block her frightfully swift attack. The steel longswords were an inconsequential shield as the Firefly drove her fist squarely into the bard's bewildered jaw.

Another sickening CRACK! and Ledwygg's head snapped back, teeth clamped firmly upon his unwitting tongue with the force. He staggered a footfall to regain his balance, then raised a hand gingerly to his jaw. A tongue darted testily out of his mouth to taste blood.

"Ye've blooded me, Firefly."

Copitzin's eyes widened at the telltale trail of red that trickled down the corner of his mouth. "Ledwygg," she moaned regretfully and stepped forward a pace. The tension in his stance indicated his reluctance to lower his defenses, yet he was altogether unsure how much good his swords would do if they stayed raised, with a right hook that fast at her disposal.

"Well done, ye both. Well done indeed," Hally encouraged from her front-row seat nearby, beaming with pride at the sudden fierceness of her worthy recruit.

"Hai." Nathan joined in, for both privates had seen a sort of victory.

"I... I am so, so sorry," Copitzin swallowed the words, all praise falling on deaf ears. Ledwygg's swords dropped slowly to rest once he saw she was indeed no longer a threat.

"I break yer sword, ye break m' face. I'd say ye've nothin t' apologize for."

"Copitzin, do not apologize. Ye acquitted yeself well," Hally said almost chidingly.

"I did not mean to bleed your tongue," Copitzin whispered, for in truth, it was an insult to his art.

"Better m' tongue than m' gut or m' throat. Ye's mad fit t' burst, lass," he said in reassurance, though his grin was strained and careful.

"Would you like that more-than-likely-bruise to be healed, Ledwygg? I can 'heal' that sword, too, if you'd like," Nathan offered warmly.

"Do not mind the sword, Nathan. Fix Ledwygg."

"If ye wishes t' use yer skill on meself, I'm thinkin' I still use m' tongue with more skill than th' blades. I'd hate t' be average at both," Ledwygg's war-wound was already beginning to complain from overuse, but the breadth of his meaning was crystal clear.

Hally let out an undignified snicker that set the Firefly's cheeks aflame with crimson. Nathan tastefully went about his craft without further comment.

"We find ye another piece o' wood, mayhaps some ironwood. An' I has some obsidian ye can knap into th' blade," Hally offered.

Copitzin looked forlornly to the fragments of her maccuahuitl, a weapon that once brought her so much pride and served her well thus far. "I do not think wood and glass stones are strong enough here."

"Well, I uses th' obsidian here for me scalpels," Hally said. "But I know what ye mean. I had t' give up most of me steel for this black metal Dare makes."

"I'd be honored if you let me 'heal' it, Copitzin. Wood and I have an affinity." Nathan turned his gaze from his work upon Ledwygg's jaw to the maccuahuitl. The bard tested the healer's craft by blowing raspberries for good measure.

"I would be wrong to not let you try." Copitzin lay the sword upon the table as gently as a broken limb. It was chilling that something so fierce could, at fate's whim, become so painfully incomplete.

Nathan had but to lay hands upon the wood before the cells began to knit back together on their own accord. This pleased the healer, and he looked up to the weapon's owner. "If you'd like, I could strengthen it, too. Make it stronger than ironwood." His tone seemed hopeful at the prospect.

"You could do that?"

"Hai," he chuckled at her expression of awe. "As I said, wood and I have an affinity. All plant life, actually."

"I would like to see that."

"Alright. Although, there won't be much to see, actually." Nathan again lay his hands upon the wood and closed his eyes, willing it into strength to serve its stronger owner. Copitzin testily picked up the shaft and twisted it in the air. With an abrupt motion, she whacked it flat against a table leg to make sure. The wood rang out in a higher tone, but that was the only difference she could discern. Wooden weapons were typically disposable tools, and yet this one seemed so right, as a living thing in her copperbrown hands.

"My thanks to you, Nathan. I think this will be fine," she grinned.

"Do itashimasite. You're welcome."

"I think we need to toast to your strength, now, Ledwygg," she turned that grin upon her partner.

"I'm fer thinkin' we needs t' toast yer right hook," he chuckled back.

"I have all night for toasting, O bard. Fill me pitcher."

"At yer biddin', lassie."

Copitzin turned to include her friends in a grand gesture of celebration. "Fill a coffee for my Commander Hally, and a can of oil for the metal man, there," she indicated Tristan, the knight at the far end, by Dare. "Fill one for all my pack-mates in..."

Her generosity was cut short as Tristan abruptly stepped outside. Dare Durlane rose his voice above the rest in a commanding tone. "Alright people, get ready for some damage. I want weapons out and ready."

Copitzin blinked, and it was but moments before Hally was clothed in full mail, commanding the packmates forth to avenge the very death of one of their own -- Aiglentine of the Gales.

At long last, the Obsidian Pawn was moved forth in battle -- and the celebrating would have to come at a later date.

Dare'chon Dur'lane's behavior in battle had made the Firefly ill that night. Copitzin had seen terrible things during her short time in Aztlan -- even performed them with her own bare hands -- but none that so struck at the core of fear in her as she watched the Kal'aire vampire feed upon the fresh corpse of the fallen Lord General of the Rathelans, Brokk Mar.

It was not the taking of Brokk Mar's blood that disturbed her.

It was the feasting on his soul.

The Avenger's unwholesome meal turned Firefly's stomach inside-out, then churned loose her lunch into a shrub outside the Black Sigil. His feeding was the most un-natural act she had ever witnessed; she prayed between hiccoughed heaves she would not have to witness it again.

When the nausea passed and she could bear to stand within arm's length of the Avenger again, she made a point of personal investigation into his ways so that she might better understand.

Dare, as all Dark Enforcers thus far, was kindly to Copitzin and tolerant of her forward manner and the constant questioning that followed. She was certain it was through his recommendation that she was chosen for the mission to Chastel Marte. It couldn't have possibly been on Hally's word -- the horse soldier seemed taken aback when Firefly declined a gesture to join her team at Anthalas. One more day and perhaps Firefly would have asked to join Hally in the city herself, but as it were, both she and Ledwygg were now bound for the dragon isle in search of Aiglentine. Lore's mother yet lived, Mourne had writ, and the Privates were employed to ensure it.

With the promise of a mission came Dare's promise of weaponry forged for the Firefly's specific use at Chastel Marte. When he came forth three days later with not one but two new devices of ferociously thoughtful design, Copitzin was flattered beyond words.

And to her awkward delight, the offerings placed her in the unusual position of having to choose among her three weapons as a woman chooses among suitors -- for with the weight of the mail Hally insisted she start wearing, compact Copitzin could not bear to maneuver with more than two weapons strapped to her person.

Thus the time of trials began, as the privates Copitzin and Ledwygg awaited the sorcerous ship that would take them to Chastel Marte and beyond.

Chapter 10

"Do you see her, there?" Copitzin asked beneath her breath as her hand clenched around the hilt of the brutal dagger Dare had fashioned. Ledwygg watched the snow-leopard nose around some fresh scat from a male of the same species. It was her own hunt that distracted her from the human presence downwind.

"Aye, there she stands." Ledwygg whispered back.

Copitzin twisted the hilt of the dagger and allowed the weapon to extend to its intended size along her arm. The spear was easily the length of her own body, light as air and promisingly deadly. Copitzin had been tracking the snow leopard for over a week, and the extended range of the new weapon brought the prospect of obtaining her pelt that much closer. She weighed the spear in her hand and held it, poised to strike.

Ledwygg's fingers curled into the earth near his knee, then soon sprouted claws of their own. The very texture of his skin changed before her eyes. His abilities had startled her at first, for she had glimpsed him as a wolfish blur in the thick of battle with the Rathleans, but tonight she was grateful -- aroused, even -- at the sight of canines that grew from a stout and feline mouth. She caught the unearthly black of the were's eyes before nodding once, then sprang from their blind in the brush.

"Ayyo!" She cried at the top of her lungs as the spear was hurled toward the snowcat's thigh. Ledwygg uncoiled soon after the spear, allowing gravity and keen vision to guide his paws to their prize. His form was imperfect yet entirely functional as he wrestled the smaller cat to the ground. He knew that Copitzin desired the pelt for her armor, and took care not to puncture or rake the snow leopard's starry hide with his brutal claws.

"Yaaaaaawwwrrr!" The leopard responded to their battle-cries in kind, legs kicking against Legwygg and spraying him with blood. She was not as delicate as he, of course, eyeing the bard's hide not as a garment but as the source of her next meal. Copitzin struggled to untangle the two with her eyes as she retrieved the spear for a second thrust. Pale claws raked against Ledwygg's flank, and paused to flex deeper into his flesh. Pelt or no, Copitzin would not watch him be shredded to ribbons, and so she sent the spear sinking again, this time at point-blank range, into the beast's shoulder. Ledwygg sank crippling fangs into the other forearm as the cat yowled with anguish. Ledwygg's own cry joined hers before clamping teeth freely into the pulse of her pale throat. Mews of protest gurgled forth from the snowcat's mouth, which was soon clamped shut against the soil with the heel of Copitzin's boot.

Copitzin drew her obsidian sword from its loop on her back and nudged the cool edge of it against Ledwygg's cheek. He tilted his head skyward, the pelt spreading pink with defeat between his jaw, eyes wide as she slit the creature from throat to belly in preparation for the skinning. Ledwygg looked at Copitzin in confusion, feral mouth unable to form words, and when she nodded him forth, he lowered his brow again to snap the leopard's ribs between bloodthirsty jaws -- then root for the creature's still-beating heart. He held the eviscerated organ gently between teeth and offered his packmate a taste of their mutual victory.

Then the shaking began.

The very earth beneath them rumbled in protest, dwarfing the moist sound of the cat's chest with a sickening gurgle of its own. The surface of the soil rippled beneath their feet and crested in a crumbling wave three paces before their kill. Earth, rocks, moss and roots conjoined into one, fearsome mass that rose as a rotting corpse from the grave.

"That is mine," the Earth rumbled in graveled Nahua tones.

Ledwygg's prize dropped from his jaws as his eyes drank in the monstrous mass. Before the organ had a chance to hit the ground, the creature's granite paw swiped to snatch the twitching heart from the air between them. A slash of roots followed like a whipcrack behind, lashing against Ledwygg's calf in retreat. Another feline yowl of defiance and anger was released to the wintry air. The werecat watched, dishonored, as the creature opened what could only be her loamy, loathesome mouth and swallowed the bleeding organ whole.

Chapter 11

"Mother!" Copitzin screamed as an indignant child at the apparition.

Ledwygg snarled again, branding the beast a bitch with his untrained feline tongue -- yet just as quickly as the creature came, the Earth settled down into nothing but a pool of damp dirt. The werecat's claws clutched air as he pounced, rending through the thin topsoil of the clearing. Deep, digestive rumblings rippled across the snowspotted tundra where they stood.

"You come here, you coward woman!" Copitzin shouted angrily to the wind, brandishing her macahuitil high. Ledwygg's bloodied tones joined hers in invitation to the enemy, echoing emptily against the icy cliffs nearby.

All was silent and terrifyingly still.

Only Firefly's abrupt movements broke the stale air. She gathered the fallen snowleopard's ankle into her own smaller palm and looked to her partner as she hoisted the corpse onto her back. "She has taken it. We do not fight this time."

Ledwygg swiped at his bloodsoaked mouth with the back of a paw, leaving behind more human features as the wereblood faded -- though it was a dark scowl in place of his usually carefree smile. "Bitch took m' trophy," he muttered. "What in th' nine hells was it did that? "

Copitzin wasted no time in lingering on the tainted soil and stormed forth with the animal's remains into the trees nearby. "My Mother, The Glutton," she responded. They were four simple words, compact as centuries of stone.

"That... that there creature, was yer mother? Yer blood mother?" Ledwygg caught up pace with her, unaware of exactly where she was headed -- it wasn't to the haven of her hut, that was for certain.

"My soul-mother, if you must know." The words whipped back like the boughs she bent out of her path through the forest.

Ledwygg jogged a few steps to intercept her, and grabbed her arm to arrest her hellbent path to god-knows-where. Concern and lingering frustration colored his features. He had never seen her this angry. Alight with battle-rage, yes, but never so blindly inflamed.

"Aye, Copitzin, I must know. What was it happened there?"

"She has come for me. And I must feed her." The Firefly swallowed thickly. She strained against his grip and tried to wrestle out of it, eyes moist with anger. "Stars, Ledwygg! Leave it be!"

"But what does that mean?" He insisted, staring a the limp cat-corpse on her back as she plunged again through the woods. The weight of the steps that followed were not promising.

"It means that I am not free even in topan, in mictlan," She spat to the ground with the saying of it.

"What grudge holds that thing against ye?" Led asked, his voice thin with frustration and weak with bloodloss.

"What grudging?" Her laugh was strained. "My only glory was in the hide. Had she waited, I would have offered the heart wholly."

"Well, th' heart was all she took. What's yer anger stem from, then? She harmed ye not."

"The heart is just the beginning," she said darkly. "And if anything, I am angry that she took it from you."

Ledwygg stopped dead in his tracks, frustrated by her slow disclosure and pained by the parallel slashes across his back. "Tell me," he demanded.

"Tell you what?" She wheeled around to face him, the snowcat-skull perched on her shoulder and both blood-pinkened paws drawn across her breast. She was met with steady eyes only seeking to understand.

"Tell me why ye looks as though yer fixin t' tear me face off. An' what yer soul mother done t' turn ye so raged."

Copitzin's gazed raked over him as the cat's own claw. "Do you dance?"

"I be a bard."

"You sing, at a distance, yes, but I am destined to dance. I do not think it would be for you to understand." Words choked in her throat as he stepped closer; they were such useless things when all she wanted to do was run.

"Try. Fer yerself, an' fer me. I can be n' help t'ye if i knows not what ye face."

Copitzin shook her head, seeking a thread from which to begin. When words failed, she merely pointed to the area where the monster had appeared. "That was the stuff of greed."

"An' what's it be she wants?"

"All of my hearts." Her mouth was a thin, quivering line.

'Methinks I hates her. Nay, I be sure on it. T' affect ye so."

"Think you to hate her? I have only to endure." She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath, looking over her shoulder to their destination. "Come."

Ledwygg straightened in relief that her anger had subsided, but winced at the stretching of his wounds. "Where d'we go?"

"I am for thinking to Nathan. I would not want your skin scarred, for my mistress."

"Fair enough, though I intends t' scar herself somethin' fair, next I sees her."

"That is much useful as scratching a line in the sand at the shore."

"We shall see," he muttered and staggered forth, then abruptly stopped again, this time by the force her own hand.

Copitzin could not explain what came over her in the blurry moment that followed; she had pressed her partner to the nearest treetrunk, the snow leopard's paw interlaced in her own, and nosed him as a she-cat would around the neck. He hissed in protest at the pressure of the bark on his ribboned back, caught somewhere between caution and her capricious turn of affection. The civilized words of gratitude for his bravery that followed were quiet in compare to the primal movement that pulled her to him. Perhaps it was only an illusion that the leopard placed her moist maw agaist his own neck, or raked her stained claws to comb a streak of life's blood through his sandy hair.

Surely it was an illusion.

Yet when Firefly drew her head back to gulp some night air, she seemed as fierce and as full of power as the beast that cloaked her back. To Ledwygg, there was something fearsomely familiar about the change...

... and to Copitzin, something positively terrifying as Tepeyolohtli entered her as an open door, making a cozy den of her own, quite mortal, heart.

Chapter 12

Copitzin built enormous fires at Tenth Tree House to illuminate her work and keep the wild creatures of the countryside at bay as she peeled the shaggy pelt from the snow leopard's lean frame. With Ledwygg at rest and her anger cooled, she took to the task with thoughtful, meditative movements. She found solace in the repetition of scraping sinew and bits of stubborn flesh from the hide.

It was a magnificent pelt, to be sure. The cat was a formidable size, and the surface seemed to double as she stretched the skin along the scraping-board. The leopard's fractured skull sat nearby with its pool of brains intact; the remainder of the flesh was thrown to the dogs that circled Tenth Tree House like landlocked vultures. Vultures, too, would come with dawn.

So did Collicoptli, the Elder.

"Ayyo!" He cried in greeting as he filled a warming-jar and headed for one of her fires. "You have been hunting!"

Firefly rose and furled out the starry pelt, then draped it over her shoulders as a queen's mantle, leaning toward the wiry man for a morning kiss. The leopard's limp head lolled backwards over her shoulder and he reached behind her to study it between two wrinkled hands.

"This is no ordinary hide, young one," he grinned approvingly.

"Why do you think I wanted it?" She grinned back at him, teeth bared beneath the upward curl of her lip.

He dropped the leopard's head and then took his grandaughter's chin into hand instead, examining her from side to side. Firefly looked at him oddly as he did so, her smile fading.

"What else did you do last night?" He asked.

"I.... we saw The Glutton, sir. At last."

"I thought this." He ran his hand along the length of the beast's skin and took the enormous tail into his palm. "Is that all you saw?"

"Yes."

"Was she kind?"

"Kind enough to leave quickly."

"Did she take anything?"

"The heart," Copitzin swallowed. "I think she was only hungry."

"I would be, too."

"She took it from Ledwygg."

Collicoptli dropped the tail back to the ground. "That was rude," he remarked.

"Yes." Copitzin agreed and drew the fresh pelt more closely around her. If it was cold here, it would be only colder in the Viking lands where the Dark Enforcers were headed. Tiny crystals of ice still clung to the fringe of fur where she had washed it free of blood.

The Elder circled again and stopped directly before his granddaughter, arms folded in appraisal. The expression on his face could not have been more satisfied.

"Why are you looking at me?"

"Because His mysteries are beautiful to behold." He tapped her heart with a bony finger. "He is in you, child. Tepeyolohtli, Heart-of-the-Mountain."

Copitzin laughed suddenly at the thought. "Yes, that is very funny, grandfather."

"I am not joking. And neither is He this time." Grandfather Firefly looked her sharply in the eye. "Xihxicuinoa took your heart, and so He gave you His."

"I do not think...."

"You do not need to think a thing." Collicoptli cut her short. "Allow Him His work while I scrape and smoke your hide. I order you to sleep."

"But..."

"Now." He reached for the wintry mantle and pulled it from her shoulders, leaving a few strings of sinew behind. "And for the sake of heaven, go wash."

With that, he turned for her scraping-board and did not offer another word until she woke.

Chapter 13

The shock of the icy stream behind Tenth Tree House brought Firefly's every nerve to attention, urging her mind alert with the meaning of her Elder's words. He had brought her here to do the Smoking Mirror's work, and she thought she had found peace in that as a Dark Enforcer, under her Lord Mourne Dur'lane. As each indicator fell into place Copitzin had come to revere the Kal'aire as part of Tezcatlipoca himself, as the god's nagual.

Never once did it occur to her that she might become His vessel, instead, for the notion was blasphemous.

If Collicoptli expected Copitzin to be able to sleep anytime soon he was much mistaken. Her attempts to rest inside the modest hut were fitful as she wrestled with the weight of the responsibility -- a weight that seemed to press from her heart outward as uncontrolled lava, hardening into the glassy flint that was Her Dark Lord's fetish.

With the cooling came peace, for then her purpose became perfectly clear.

Chapter 14

Firefly emerged from the hut in the twilight hour that marked the meeting between night and day, eyes searching for her grandfather among the three ember-fires that burned outside. Collicoptli had long tried to explain the firefly-nature of their chosen tonalli to her many times, and only now was she beginning to truly understand it. She knew quite well what outsiders thought of the sign: that it was fearful, not to be trusted. Malicious and full of ill intent. Now-you-see-it-now-you-don't. Trickery of the cruelest kind, capricious at best. Vessels of sorcery, the Fireflies were, strong of will and spirit. They were walkers between worlds.

Outsiders so often feared what they could not begin to understand.

Yet when Collicoptli first told the girl Xocoyo she was one of his own, relief spread over her like a warm blanket. She bore the title at first for him alone, then slowly among the other elders and initiates. When she broke from service in the temples she held the name high as a lanternlight before her. Now here, her fellow Enforcers knew her not by any other name than that of the Treasured Firefly, Copitzin. The call fell from their lips with the grace of gravel or honey, but each saying of it built her stronger than the day before.

There was power in naming things, and when Collicoptli the Elder tapped her chest that dawn and named the spirit inside her Tepeyolohtli, she took this name as her own as well, answering gladly as her Dark Lord's nagual.

"Heart-of-the-Mountain, come here," Collicoptli urged her forth from behind a pillar of smoke where her hide lay stretched over a cone of wet branches.

Firefly stepped forth with all the restraint her mortal body could manage. Muscles felt ready to spring, every nerve burning alive with the urge to move.

"You want to go running now, yes?" His eyes crinkled up approvingly at her control.

"Yes, my elder. Very much."

"Take your dancing-bells."

Copitzin looked at him quizzically. The bells were brought with her, indeed, but only as a sentimental thing. She did not expect to use them much. "You do not want me to..."

"Make as much noise as you can, Copitzin. You wake up the Sixth Sun"

With this, Firefly's eyes lit with understanding and she turned back to the hut. So few words needed to pass between the two -- with the Heart-of-the-Mountain inside her, so little needed to be said.

"What comes this way, a gypsy band?" Lord Mourne Dur'lane, Supreme Commander of the Dark Enforcers and Prince of the Clan Kal'aire, cast an infernal gaze to the doorway of the Black Sigil Inn. Bells and rattles moved in chaotic patterns at the threshold, raising the ire in him to cast a fireball at the first juggling jester to step though the door. How he loathed merrymakers!

He was much surprised to find the troupe was none but the Private Copitzin and her inseparable partner in play, the Taleweaver-turned-Private Ledwygg. The two looked flushed, as if having run for hours; this in itself was nothing new, but cacophonous sound rose from Copitzin's own ankles, and she wore the noisemakers with a fierce determination long from folly.

"Fair evening, Firefly. I shall be marginally pleased to know what all the instrumental accompaniment is for?" Mourne demanded an explanation with the lazy curl of his question. The Firefly stepped forth, cloaked in the shaggy raiment of the snowleopard, smelling faintly of smoke and the creature's own curing brains. The copper bells and wooden rattles responded in kind as she approached. Lore slipped fresh fingers politely beneath her nose to stave off the growing stench.

"For the bringing of the Sixth Sun, my Lord," Firefly replied, her head held high.

Mourne nodded once and greeted Ledwygg with a regal cant of his chin before focusing upon her once more. "Enlighten me further as to this celebration."

"I am waking the Sun, my Lord." She loosened the knot of the starry pelt on her shoulder. "It is not a celebration. It is a trial." Lore shrank further into the chair, listening intently as Mourne merely tapped his claws upon ebon armrests, the way he often did when curious or irritated.

"Tell me of this trial then?"

"The Fifth Sun is dying, my Lord. I am to ensure its end and herald the next."

"What brings the death of the Fifth Sun, Copitzin? Is there reason for this?" He asked. "I am unfamiliar with your ways, and would enjoy their knowledge."

"Time." Copitzin prayed that single word was enough.

Mourne's expression remained unreadable, though now her behavior made perfect sense. It was not hard to piece together the puzzle, for the tale of Ending-Days were known far and wide regardless of origin. Surely this was but another sign.

"Is there anything I may do to assist you in this?" He asked with surprising kindness.

The question caught Firefly off-guard, as did Ledywgg's fond fingers through the looser strands of her hair as he offered a cup of nectar, the nourishment she badly needed after their day far afield. She accepted all gratefully and turned an inquiring brow upon her Lord Dur'lane as she drank.

"You would assist?"

"If it is in my power, Copitzin."

"I am thinking that it would be good to hold the Fifth Sun down so the Sixth may rise. Do you think, my Lord, that there is a way to do such?"

"I suppose I could manage this, yes," he said, with sorcerer's mind already grinding away at just how intricately large of an illusion the task might be -- a collective hallucination, perhaps, or other distractive device. "When is the Sixth Sun set to rise?"

"It is some hard to say, with the stars moving wrongly as they are. My grandfather is the keeper of such times."

"When is the Fifth due to fall? I shall make the preparations then to assist at that juncture."

"On the day 4-Earthquake. I do not know the calendars here, or why the stars are spilled, or how much time passed as we traveled. I am needing a math-man to know for certain. But it is soon, my Lord, I know this."

"Then I shall be prepared when the time comes," he nodded with a pleased click of talons upon the armrest. "I can assist you with mathematics, if need be. I would be elated, actually to instruct you in them, and reading if you'd desire."

"You would, then? As would I."

"Then it is done. When we have seen the Sixth's Sun rise, I will be glad to instruct as time allows."

Copitzin's brow furrowed as a small flutter of panic rose in her chest. She needed help now, before it was too late, not after the New Fire. "Our time grows short, for the end-day," she urged.

"Time is what we make of it. Ending of days does not imply that one does not have new days to come. Keep faith in this."

"My faith is not to question, my Lord." The words came quickly, and lips drew back to bare white teeth. If Mourne were not so seasoned he might have misunderstood the expression as a threatening one, but it was only her curious kind of smile.

"I never doubt it was, Firefly, but faith in one's beliefs and faith in things around us are two different affairs."

"Are you to say I should not believe my eyes, my Lord?"

"Sometimes believing one's eyes is the greatest deception. This world is formulated of far more things than senses can perceive."

Copitzin looked intensely at her Lord, for she did not know if he was patronizing her with these words or quietly affirming that which she already knew. His tone comforted her, however cryptic, and she took the advice with the same gravity and gratitude as her own elder's. She nodded once and retreated to allow another recruit an interview with Mourne. Her own audience with him was more fruitful than she had anticipated; there would be time to speak of mathematics and meteors soon enough, if the Firefly had her way.

Chapter 15

"Do you have gods, Ledwygg?" Copitzin asked the bard one night at The Black Sigil. If he had, he had yet to mention them. His history as a solitary creature made it difficult to know of his own culture.

The bard blinked and peered at her over his ale. "I expects as I does, dasn't we all?"

"You have not taken any as your own? Or been taken?"

He shrugged blithely in response. "Nay, no one telled me as I had t' do such."

"But you bard about the other gods, yes?"

"I takes th' stories I hears, an puts em t' song. Some of 'em be about gods, aye."

"Tell me every thing you know about the sun gods," she asked, grinning up at him. A light sprinkle of goldenrod pollen and metallic golddust burnished her features to a healthy glow -- just another of the outward transformations Ledwygg and the other Enforcers had seen the stout woman bear in recent days.

"Which ones? There be songs on at least three, as I can put m' mind to at present."

"Start with the first one you heard."

"One says as he drives th' sun across th' sky. It be a sort o' horsecart, see, th' sun, an' this god be th' driver. He be a young lad, a prodigy, an' the other gods hates him fer that he has th' prestige o' drivin' th' sun."

"Is he a warring lad?"

"Nay, just one as loves mischief," Ledwygg grinned back.

"Where does he go when the chariot is in the west?"

"There be many a song about his adventures in th' night... explorin th' heavens, chasin' stars, stealin' from the other gods' garden, an always a scramble t' get back t' the east in time fer th' dawn."

"I would like to hear those songs some time," Copitzin said. "What others?"

"There be a legend says as th' sun god be a hermit. Built th' sun around him usin' powerful magic, th' like o' which no god can match. S' now, he lives inside his magic-dome, an' spends all his time escapin' the pryin' eyes o' the gods. Th' gods lives in th' constellations, y'see, that be why ye only sees th' sun in the day."

Copitzin nodded in understanding, though the story did not yet align with her own beliefs. Nathan D'Kamor, listening nearby, softly interrupted them.

"Copitzin? Next time you see her, feel free to talk to Miyuki-chan. She's priestess of Amatarasu, a Japanese sun goddess."

The Firefly's eyes grew as round and bright as the sun itself. "She is?"

"Hai," Nathan chuckled. "Miyuki-chan is her Priestess, as I said. The only one we're aware of, in Rhy'Din."

"I am much needing to speak to her, then!" Copitzin's expression glittered with anticipation of the opportunity.

"I'm sure she'd enjoy it." Nathan smiled and nodded. Ledwygg nodded in agreement, too, only vaguely understanding his friend's enthusiasm for the sun-tales and her curious new countenance.

"My thanks for the thought, Nathan. That is a very good idea."

"Do itashimasite, you're welcome."

"What is the last story, Ledwygg?" Copitzin turned to the taleweaver.

"This one be a bit strange. Seems as there were a god who lost her favorite pet, a wee caterpillar. She was fond as could be on that creature, an' when it went lost she like t' went mad. S' now, each day, she takes up her lantern an' goes lookin fer her caterpillar. Does such every day, till she finds him. But she never will y'see, because th' caterpillar went an' cocooned hisself, an' became th' butterfly. She sees 'im every night, as the butterfly be th' sunset. Beautiful, he be... but she never recognizes her pet. So she searches on, an' were it not fer herself, we'd have naught but night."

Copitzin took a moment to digest this one. In Texcoco, it was the warriors who became butterflies in the afterlife. They were far from 'pets'. "What about ending-suns? Do you know any stories like that?"

"I does, Copitzin," Hally offered from near Nathan.

"D'ye wish t' tell yer sun-story, Hally?" Ledwygg asked.

Hally's hand lifted faintly in a ritualistic movement; a blue gem swung from a silver chain before she began the tale. "Sun be born each day in th' far eastern reaches, he rise with his head profile t' th' earth. Red an' blue mottled with his humors."

"How does he end?" Copitzin wondered aloud.

"He fly the sky, so far from th' earth it take all day, always watchin'. Till dusk time. He fall t' th' western reaches in a blaze o' glory. Burnin' passion for it is only at that fallin' that he meet his eternal mate. Then he sleep there... Only t' be reawoke th' next morn in th' Eastern Reaches. Once a year, in summer, th' Phoenix -- The Sun -- Die in midday 'pon th' Summer Solstice. Sky burn orange, red, blue clouds racin' over... An' in that death, come th' night at day for a moment, an' th' Night -- That be Th' Halcyon. She brings him alive once more, an' he blaze yellow for the rest of th' day. Ye follow th' sun, an' ye find ye path always lead th' the knowledge of life an' th' land." The graceful gesture of her hand reversed, her fingers bent in a gentle arch of closure.

"That is a nice long story. But it is not an ending-story. That is what I am thinking of," Copitzin said.

"There be no legend of permanent endin' 'pon th' Land. Th' moon, th' sun, th' universe be a circle, so they can't end... can't begin."

"You are right, Hally, that there is a circle, but some-times there is a breaking," The Firefly explained, then turned eyes upon Miyuki as she entered the room and joined their story-circle. "Maybe I can tell you a story and you will say if you have heard the same?"

Miyuki agreed with a smile and settled next to Nathan. Copitzin turned upon her stool on the bar than planted broad hands upon her knees. Her mother had told her the tale a thousand times before, but never once had she the task of telling it herself. That was, after all, her mother's calling; Neucuicuatl, sweet Honeysong.

"There was a first sun," Copitzin began, "And under this sun we ate only acorns. This was Tezcatlipoca's sun, and it was a good First Sun. But the Feathered Serpent struck My Lord with a stick, and he became an ocelotl. On this day 4-Ocelotl, ocelotl-cats devoured the men, and a new sun was born. The Second Sun was known as 4-Wind, and was ruled by the Feathered Serpent. Men ate only water-corn under his sun. But My Lord the Smoking Mirror kicked the sun from his seat, and a great wind blew the men away on its dying-day. All the men became monkeys, and a new sun was born."

Copitzin paused and gauged her audience for any signs of disbelief. Hally herself smiled faintly as a bare reference to her own world's story emerged in the progression of suns.

"The Third Sun was Tlalocatectli's. The Feathered Serpent sent a fire to this sun, called 4-Rain. The men's houses burned in the rain of fire, and all the men fled to became turkeys. A new sun was born. The Fourth Sun was Chalhiuhtlicue's Sun. The Water's sun. It rained hard, for a flood, and the new sun was born. This sun is the Fifth Sun. It is our sun, and under this sun we eat corn. It is called 4-Earthquake, and that is the day it will die."

"Aye," Hally nodded in understanding.

"It is Nanahuatzin's sun, and soon it will be no longer."

"A wonderful story, Copitzin," Nathan murmured, though the tale left no room for closure.

"Did anyone know there would be a new sun before th' old sun died?" Hally asked.

"Yes. They know as some of us know now."

"An' they sees no new sun after this last?"

Copitzin paused, quite unsure of how to say what she so desperately needed them to believe. "There are some that say it is the last sun, to be swallowed by an Earthquake forever," she said. "I am not one of them that believes. I am believing a different story."

"Sometimes, visions don't come till they be needed. Othertimes, a old vision make no sense till time catch up with it," Hally explained at the sign of stress on the Firefly's face.

"I am to guarantee the Sixth Sun rising," Firefly softly offered in confidence.

"Visions can only be of what the gods want man to know," Miyuki offered.

Hally's hand turned to Yuki, indicating her with the glittering gem in an elegant gesture. "Speak ye to Miyuki, now, Copitzin. Her sun walk close in hand with her."

"Yes. I am wanting to know more from one who speaks to the sun."

"What is it you wish to know?" Miyuki shifted in her spot so Nathan could scratch a particular spot upon her back.

"Tales of th' sun's endin'," Hally explained.

"I am also wanting to know if the Fifth Sun will go down quietly. It is said, there will be demons on 4-Movement -- tzitzimime -- that eat the unworthy. It is a cleansing-thing."

"I have no tales of the sun ending, but I can tell you a story of the beginning," Miyuki offered kindly.

"Tell the beginning," Copitzin urged and rose from her barstool to kneel nearby.

"In the beginning there were many gods. Out of the fruits of their labors two appeared that were lessor but still powerful. They were Izanagi-no-Makoto and Izanami-no-Makoto. He who Invites and She who Invites respectively." Miyuki nodded unconsciously in respect to the gods as she continued. "They came to the earth. Izanagi turned some mud from the waters and formed the lands, the lands we know today as the islands of Japan. He pulled them from the waters so that He and She might have a place stay upon the earth." Miyuki paused and chuckled a little with an aside. "This story is a bit chuvanisitic so bear with me. After a time the two of the watched a pair of magpies mating and decided to attempt it themselves. The first time Izanami-no-Makoto intiated the contact. When they were done she said 'My what a good lad' and he replied 'My what a good lass'. She became pregnant and gave birth to a leech child, which she put to a reed and sent off onto the waters. When they asked the others about their failure, they were told it was because She intiated the contact. The next time It was Izanagi who started... and it was he who spoke first 'My what a good lass' to which she replied to him 'My what a good lad'. She gave birth to several other children. Among them were three noble children."

"Amatrasu-no-Mikami, who is the Goddess of the Sun, was entrusted with ruling the skies. There were others gods and goddesses. Eventually Izanami died while giving birth to Fire. There is much more to the story. Most of it revolves around Ianzagi and Izanami. After She died He went after her into the dark of the underground to retrieve her, but she had already become the Goddess of the dead and threatened him with killing a thousand of his children a day. He just said he would make fifteen hundred a day instead. The only well known story about Amatarasu involves the time she sealed herself away in a cave and plunged the world into darkness."

"What happened?" Copitzin leaned forth on her knees, much of this tale sounding familiar, but much of it not.

"As th' sun what never shone in Copitzin's tale?" Hally asked, curious herself.

"There was a rivalry between Amatarasu and her brother O-Susano who was god of the storms. One day he managed to trick her into allowing him entrance into the heavens where he then went about producing troubles and mischief. In a fit if despair at what She had done, She locked herself away in a cave, using a large boulder to seal herself in. And so the Earth was plunged into freezing darkness. The other gods and goddesses, seeing what was becoming of the earth, tried to talk her into coming out. They even tossed O-Susano from the heavens and sheared his beard for all the trouble he had created, but still She remained in Her Cave, and the world began to freeze."

Copitzin squirmed like a child. "How did she come out?"

"She was tricked," Miyuki grinned, and Nathan grinned behind her with the infectious enthusiasm.

"Tricked!" Copitzin declared. Of course!

"The other gods created three treasures; a Sword, a Mirror, and a Necklace. They hung the mirror in a tree outside the cave along with the necklace and the sword, and then began to dance and party to try and draw her attention. During this party the Goddess Uzame danced and joked to make the others laugh and cry out in happiness. This got Amatrasu's attention, so She peeked out from behind the bounder She had been using to seal herself in. Not to be too narcissistic... She saw the most beautiful goddess looking back at her."

"Mirrors," grinned Copitzin, delighted with the turn of the tale. Already she was beginning to get some ideas of her own from the story.... ideas that actually might get put to use.

"Of course She was looking at the mirror, but She had never seen her reflection before, and stunned ... slipped from her cave. As soon as she was out, a couple of the waiting gods sealed the entrance back up so She could not retreat back into it. Snd so they brought the Sun back into the heavens. The royal family, which traces a direct line linage to Amatarasu, still has the Sword, the Mirror, and the Necklace in their possession."

"Domo arigato gozimasu, Koi, for a wonderful story," Nathan said softly to his partner.

"Yes, our thanks to you, Miyuki. Do you think that is a story that has already happened? Or one that will?" Copitzin tilted her head thoughtfully toward her friends.

"It already happened, Copitzin."

"After hearing all these stories I do not know which to believe." Firefly's brow furrowed deeply. "Are you knowing if your sun and mine are the same?"

"Never is it claimed that the Gods in Shinto are omnipotent. Perhaps they are only names they take when dealing with different cultures. They take on forms that the people can understand. The Greeks were a rather arrogant people. So their gods sat up on Mt. Olympus and passed judgment on those so far below. Heavens help somebody to who tried to reach them."

"I think if your sun was going to die, she would tell you," Copitzin mused aloud. "She seems like a nice sun."

Hally looked back and forth between Yuki and the Firefly, fascinated. The golden youth was not mincing around the larger issues at hand -- issues that rocked the very foundations of Firefly's faith.

"I would think She would tell me, Copitzin after all. I am the High Priestess to her in these parts."

Copitzin gulped audibly. "High Priestess?"

"Hai," Miyuki smiled rather demurely; her position in the temple was not something she much liked to advertise. "I am not Maki here, however. I am no different from you or Hally."

Firefly's tone was somber and urgent as Miyuki rose with Nathan to attend to her temple duties. "I am thinking we must speak more on this," Firefly murmured, for clearly the last hours of the Winter Solstice weren't the time or the place for such sensitive discussion.

The high priestess nodded in agreement for another time, leaving Copitzin to puzzle together the five stories she had heard that evening. Combined with the ominous tale of the Black Sun Rising she had gathered from the Prophet herself the day before, there was much to think on in the dawns to come.

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