***
Snow rainids ate salted and dried meats, berries, vegetables and pine needles. A time of scarcity resulted in a meager feast. There was no fresh meat due to storms that had made hunting fruitless for weeks. The funeral itself was a low-key affair, with little talking. Rainids filtered in and out, proclaiming their thoughts in their own tongue, accompanied by a loud rhythmic song whose primal sadness and pervading loss echoed off the rock walls of Mt. Rekkerkem. The mourning took place deep in the gorge, on wide platforms extending out from both sides.
As he nibbled on a salad of pine needles and nuts, Waimbrill wondered if his sadness and pain was inordinate, considering the low number of people he had cleaved. He listened to the baritone warbling and keening of the mourners, saw their tears at the loss of one who had been a beloved part of the community. She was known, respected and now missed by so many people that he must have gathered a lot of pain from her cleaving, he thought. But, examining his heart, he felt essentially content, a feeling that worried him even more as he wondered if he had done something wrong, if her and her loved one’s pain had not transferred to him as it should. Then, every few seconds, something would happen - a man would speak, a child would drop a plate, a woman would laugh - and for a moment, he felt positive that that was the trigger that would set off a cascade of emotions. It never did though, and he remained sure that he was not experiencing the full range of pathos he should. Whether this was due to his own competence or incompetence he didn’t know.
The mourning ceremony was complete, and the rainids ululated, dispersing in a merry frenzy of activity. They jumped over and on each other as they bounced around the gorge in which they lived.
Waimbrill wondered if he would be able to find someone to take him home. If not, it would be a long and perilous descent, and a lengthy journey all the way back to his cottage.
Still lightheaded, he stopped on a narrow ledge, below which was a sheer, snowy slope. The clouds above his head floated so near he thought he might be able to jump onto them if only he dared.
The mountain rumbled beneath his feet. The celebrating rainids in the village quieted. He heard a crash, and felt more vibrations, then great cracks appeared in the white ground below. Swathes of snow went tumbling away, and he both saw and felt the very mountain shake, as though waking from an ancient slumber. He lost his balance and collapsed to his knees, lungs heaving, heart pounding. He was sure he would be tossed into the deluge of snow that crashed down the mountainside, uprooting trees and knocking over boulders like sticks and pebbles. But he clung tightly to the ledge beneath him, holding his breath while he wondered how he would die in an avalanche: the fall? the suffocation? the cold?
The thrashing beneath him stopped, and sepulchral silence filled the air. The mountainside was white, broken only with the tips of trees poking out at odd angles, and he was partially blinded by the sun reflecting off the sheen of snow. It was a beautiful sight, he thought, after catching his breath and shielding his eyes with his hands. Rainids whooped and hollered, leaping around him. They jumped and tumbled down the side of the mountain, burrowing into and out of the snow like moles, laughing as they cavorted atop the remains of the avalanche.
A burst of snow beneath him settled to reveal a pair of rainids, grins wide and smeared with blood, carrying a moose carcass up the mountain. He saw more rainids pop out of the loose, powdery snow, laden with the bodies of deer and moose, and armloads of rabbits, squirrels and opossums. He crept to the edge of the boulder to better see the goings-on, and a loose rock came out from under him. He fell forward, head first, and slid on the slippery mat of ice-slick snow.
He frantically grabbed around him but found only handfuls of loose powder. All he saw was white, whether clouds or snow, or both, he couldn’t tell, and he felt the biting chill of wind. Time seemed to stop; up and down were the same and he wondered if he was still falling, or if he had landed and his mind hadn’t yet comprehended its end. He was in free fall, hundreds of feet above a carpet of snow in which he landed, belly down.
The lightly compacted snow beneath him cracked under his weight, and he plummeted into it, sliding through a tunnel burrowed by rainids. It slowed his fall enough that he remained unhurt, but not enough that he could stop himself.
He collided with a hard, pale blue shape. As he tumbled, limb over limb, he realized it was Sharradrir. They landed in a pile in a flat spot in the tunnel, and Waimbrill separated himself from the rainid, wincing and shaking his bruised bones.
Sharradrir snarled, but stopped when he saw that it was only the Soulclaine and not a rival come to steal the two dead rabbits he carried. He sheepishly offered Waimbrill one of them
“I apologize,” Waimbrill said, putting the rabbit in his pack, “I fell all the way from the top of your mountain.”
“Ye should be more careful, Mortiss. Your kind are not suited to mountains. I will accompany you the rest of the way to the ground.”
Occasionally losing control and slipping, Waimbrill descended with the help of Sharradrir. They passed a quartet of dead wolves, sharp teeth sticking out of their fierce faces, silver and black fur matted with melted snow, lugged up a steep tunnel by rainids, who stared with a mixture of hostility and surprise at Waimbrill.
They crawled out of the snow into the bright light of the noontime sun near the bottom of the slope. Waimbrill stopped and cocked his head to the side. He heard a low rumble, and the ground vibrated beneath his feet.
“What was that?” Waimbrill asked, “Another avalanche?”
“It sounds like a grellpir,” Sharradrir said, “A destructive spirit created by the power of an avalanche. They only exist for a few minutes, so we must hide from it if we can; it is a stupid beast, and not hard to fool. It will dissolve quickly on its own.”
The slope shook violently and the snow underfoot rose, almost knocking Waimbrill off his feet. He dropped to his hands and knees as a deep guttural growl emanated from the ground itself, which ascended to twice the height of a man, and all he could do was hold on. The mountain of upraised powder on which both Waimbrill and Sharradrir struggled to keep their grip shook violently, revealing a large humanoid-shaped creature made of pure white snow.
The grellpir roared, its hands reaching for its back, where Waimbrill and Sharradrir clutched tightly to its shoulders, out of the reach of its thick snowy arms.
“Jump into one of the trees!” Sharradrir shouted, pointing at the tall fir and spruce trees protruding from the freshly laid snow. Most of the trees had tumbled down the mountain and were splintered, laying at odd angles, but several stuck out well above the grellpir’s height. Sharradrir jumped and landed nimbly on the thick branch of a fir tree high above the snow.
Waimbrill tried to climb onto the beast’s shoulder so he would be in position to jump when he got close enough to a tree, but the icy snow that constituted the grellpir was slippery and jagged, and he could barely maintain his grip as his bloody hands shrieked pain.
It stopped and shook again, like a dog, and Waimbrill’s grip slipped. He flew through the air, smacking against the pointed needles of a spruce. The sharp smell of sap slapped his senses, and he struggled to his feet, gasping.
The grellpir darted across the rock and ice towards him. He saw its black eyes and wide circular mouth, no jaw or lips or tongue, only an empty hole out of which came a hollow bellow, echoing and reverberating against the sun-lit snowscape. He made it to his feet in time to see it reach out for him with one thick snowy paw. Waimbrill screamed and scampered away.
Sharradrir leapt to the ground in front of the monster. “Leave the Soulclaine alone!” he shouted, then yelled at Waimbrill, “Run!”
Waimbrill sprinted away faster than he ever thought he could. Dodging its massive paw, Sharradrir threw a knife through the grellpir’s neck, but it was unfazed. Waimbrill turned and saw the monster wrap Sharradrir in one fist, then pop the struggling rainid into his mouth. Waimbrill screamed and the monster faced him.
They both pa
used, Waimbrill shrieking for the death of the warrior who had saved him, and the monster stared, suddenly silent, the empty hole of its maw dark and deep.
Waimbrill’s heart raced so fast he thought it might burst out of his chest, and he couldn’t tell if he was still screaming or not. The monster roared.
A few chunks of snow fell off its back. This was followed by more, in larger and larger clumps, the creature groaning as it dissolved into loose powder in a matter of seconds. Waimbrill fell to his knees and clutched his head in his hands while he regained his composure.
He stepped towards the pile of snow where the grellpir had fallen apart, and saw a flash of blue. He gasped and dug through it, pulling out Sharradrir’s body. He had a moment of hope that the rainid might have survived the encounter after all.
But Sharradrir was dead, frozen solid like a chunk of ice. Waimbrill mourned his sacrifice, meditating over the warrior’s body, then said the High Prayer and soulcleaved him. Since no one knew of the rainid’s death except for him, Sharradrir was the only possible source for the deluging bitterness that nipped at his heart like astringent mosquito bites. It was accompanied by swelling pride and righteousness, for sacrificing oneself to save a Mortiss was as honorable a fate as any warrior could hope for. But the negative emotions were more demanding of his consciousness, more compelling and constant, and he wearily walked away, guilt mounting.
Waimbrill limped down the mountainside alone, stopping at a small farmhouse where he told the inhabitants what had happened so they could inform the rainids.
Limbs aching, joints screaming, he returned to his humble cottage. Bursts of sadness in his spleen signaled Sharradrir’s bereaved discovering his death in fits and spurts: a few people who barely knew him one moment, little spots of angst that melted into a miasma of pain, followed by a cluster of the grievously dolorous, their loss striking a bass bell of melancholy whose tone vibrated his innards for hours.
He thought of the joyous grinning rainids as they dragged their meaty bounty through the snow up the harsh mountain they loved. It must have been a sort of holiday for them, he decided, and he was sad that he would not participate again. He realized that this regret was not his, that he had no connection to this avalanche feast, no nostalgia for it, but still the wistful wanting filled his heart and mind. This, he thought, must be the regret of the two rainids he had cleaved today.
Unable to sleep, he called to mind his training. Sleep is the first tool of a Soulclaine. It is the truest rest and the source of all healing. Value it, make time for it, make a place for it. If sleep cometh not in that place, leave it, thus it shall remain a place for thy heart to sleep. Examine thy wakefulness in a place for thy mind to meditate.
He covered himself in blankets. The visceral chill of Mt. Rekkerkem soaked into his flesh like the flavors of a marinade, remaining despite the inviting warmth of the coals, wrapping around his skin and sinking into his body in thin tendrils, leaving a cold core and a frozen face, his nose still numb, his ears so frigid they burned.
The totality of a person’s beliefs is called a Paradigm, each of which is unique. These beliefs are notions about the world, like “People conspire to harm me”, or about others, like “My mother loveth me”, or about ourselves, like “I can never win in rambleball”. When thou cleavest a person, thou absorbest his Paradigm. Thine own beliefs shall remain, interspersed among those for whom thou art claine, whose souls sometimes bubble forth, and for a moment, thou shalt perceive the world through a Paradigm of thy cleaved.
He finally warmed, and his ears and nose thawed despite the chill at his back. He removed the heavy blankets draped over him, and closed his eyes, focusing on the pores of his chest and arms, examining the feeling of perspiration and the inexorable in and out of heated air seeping into his lungs.
To overcome this, thou must first identify the beliefs of the Paradigm that controleth thee. Thou must ponder with depth and detail the ideas filling thy mind; thou must theorize and process, search heartily for words that bear the truth for which thy choir of cleaved cry out - not a universal truth, but rather the opposite: words whose truth is borne only to he whose Paradigm thou hast identified, a truth so personal it could only be articulated in poems on parchment, songs of sweet soul, or pictures in pigment and paint.
Waimbrill moved away from the uncomfortably warm stove. His muscles and joints relaxed. He examined the potent feelings washing through his mind, and tried to imagine who might be its source.
Identify with absolute specificity the Paradigm that aileth thee. Examine all the feelings perfusing thy soul, hypothesize a hundred Paradigms until thou discoverest the one that congrueth with the racing chaotic cognition of thy cleaved, now no longer discordantly cacophonous, no more weeds in the garden, but rather a garden of weeds. Thou shalt see the world then as the one whose Paradigm affecteth thee, and thou shalt feel that person’s heart and soul as truly as thou feelest thine own; thy body shall ring with righteousness, and thine understanding of this Paradigm shall be so great thou controlest it, rather than it controleth thee.
He realized why the heat of the burning coals felt so intense: he was controlled by the Paradigm of a snow rainid, one of whose core beliefs was that bitterly cold air was comfortable. His cottage was cozier, more like a true home than the temporary abode he thought of it as, and he felt a greater familiarity with every object and every nook and cranny in the house. Nothing was visibly different, but everything was palpably different, like an aura of motherly welcome permeated it all. He wanted desperately to share this home, to show someone the graceful comfort that gleamed like fresh-fallen snow, giving even the dustiest and dimmest of surfaces a loving glow. He longed for a family, a longing that must have been the Paradigm of a tribeswoman, perhaps a close friend of either the woman or Sharradrir. No, he thought, he felt no ringing righteousness about a friend. But a mother, yes, a mother, he decided, and confidence flowed through him. Surety swept across his mind that Sharradrir’s mother wept for his loss. Waimbrill wept too, and despondency washed over him, leaving a crushing loneliness.
He didn’t realize his meditations had taken all night until sunlight crept through his window, and now that he was sleepy, the morning interrupted his rest. He had no sooner begun dozing when footsteps approached his hut. He groaned and heard gentle knocking.
“Mortiss Waimbrill,” said a quiet voice that he recognized as dwarven, “We have need of your kind to live.”
Waimbrill wearily dragged himself to the door. His frustration at being woken so early abated when he saw the ashy, tear-streaked faces of four dwarven men and an elder woman. The men, short and squat with bushy beards and long braided hair, rolls of fat bulging out of their thick coveralls and coarse tunics, carried a litter on which was a sheet-shrouded body.
“My husband passed away,” the woman said, her lip quivering, voice wavering, “I know it’s late, but I always promised him I would brook no delay in his soulcleaving. A sorcerer corrupted his brother into a creature of unending torment,” she said, then let out a hoarse, stifled cry, “Please...”
At least, Waimbrill thought, I don’t have to travel anywhere.
The soulcleaving took only a moment, and the dwarves left him with a chunk of gold from their mine, shuffling towards the road as the woman sniffled and sobbed gently. Waimbrill wondered how long it would be before her grief kept him up all night.
He tried to go back to sleep, but by then the sun was up, and he found no rest for his tired muscles or mind.