“I am Pran Chole of Cannig Tol's Clan among the Kron Tlan.” Pran stepped close and crouched before the fire. “I am also the White Fox, Kruppe, wise in the ways of ice.” He glanced at Kruppe and smiled.
Pran's face was wide, the bones pronounced beneath smooth, gold skin. His eyes were barely visible between tight lids, but what Kruppe saw of them was a startling amber in colour. Pran reached out long, supple hands over the fire. “Fire is life, and life is fire. The age of ice passes, Kruppe. Long have we lived here, hunting the great herds, gathering to war with the Jaghut in the southlands, birthing and dying with the ebb and flow of the frozen rivers.”
“Kruppe has travelled far, then.”
“To the beginning and to the end. My kind give way to your kind, Kruppe, though the wars do not cease. What we shall give to you is freedom from such wars. The Jaghut dwindle, ever retreat into forbidding places. The Forkrul Assail have vanished, though we never found need to fight them. And the K'chain Che'Malle are no more-the ice spoke to them with words of death.” Pran's gaze swung back to the fire. “Our hunting has brought death to the great herds, Kruppe. We are driven south, and this must not be. We are the Tlan, but soon the Gathering comes, and so shall be voiced the Rite of Imass and the Choosing of the Bone Casters, and then shall come the sundering of flesh, of time itself.
“With the Gathering shall be born the T'lan Imass, and the First Empire.”
“Why, Kruppe wonders, is he here?”
Pran Chole shrugged. “I have come for I have been called. By whom, I know not. Perhaps it is the same with you.”
“But Kruppe is dreaming. This is Kruppe's dream.”
“Then I am honoured.” Pran straightened. “One of your time comes. Perhaps this one possesses the answers we seek.”
Kruppe followed Pran's gaze to the south. He raised an eyebrow. “If not mistaken, then Kruppe recognizes her as a Rhivi.”
The woman who approached was perhaps middle-aged, heavy with child. Her dark, round face bore features similar to Pran Chole's, though less pronounced. Fear shone in her eyes, yet there was a grim determination about her as well. She reached the fire and eyed the two men, most of her attention drawing to Pran Chole. “Tlan,” she said, “the Tellann Warren of the Imass of our time has birthed a child in a confluence of sorceries. Its soul wanders lost. Its flesh is an abomination. A shifting must take place.” She turned to Kruppe and swept back the thick woven robe she wore, revealing her swelled stomach. The bare, stretched skin had been recently traced in a tattoo. The image was that of a whitehaired fox. “The Elder God walks again, risen from blood spilled on consecrated stone. K'rul came in answer to the child's need and now aids us in our quest. He apologizes to you, Kruppe, for using the world within your dream, but no younger god can influence this place. Somehow you have made your soul immune to them.”
“The rewards of cynicism,” Kruppe said, bowing.
The woman smiled.
“I understand,” Pran Chole said. “You would make of this child, born of Imass powers, a Soletaken.”
“Yes. It is the best we can manage, Tlan. A shapeshifter-which we too know as Soletaken-must be fashioned.”
Kruppe cleared his throat. “Excuse Kruppe, please. But are we not missing someone vital to these plans?”
“She strides two worlds,” the Rhivi said. Vrul guides her now into yours. She is frightened still. It falls to you, Kruppe, to welcome her.”
Kruppe adjusted the sleeves of his faded, threadbare cloak. “This should not prove difficult for one of Kruppe's charms.”
“Perhaps,” the Rhivi said, frowning. “Her flesh is an abomination. You have been warned.”
Kruppe nodded affably, then looked around. “Will any direction do?”
Pran Chole laughed.
“I suggest south,” the Rhivi said.
He shrugged and, with a bow to the two companions, he headed south. After a few minutes he glanced back, but the fire was nowhere in sight. He was alone in the chill night.
A full moon appeared on the eastern horizon, bathing the land in silver light. Ahead, the tundra rolled on as far as Kruppe could see, flat and featureless. Then he squinted. Something had just appeared, still distant, walking with seeming great difficulty. He watched it fall once, then climb back to its feet. Despite the luminescence, the figure looked black.
Kruppe moved forward. It had yet to see him, and he stopped when he was but thirty feet away. The Rhivi had been right. Kruppe produced his silk handkerchief and wiped the sweat that had sprung across his brow.