IM AN ORC?

He sat with that. The ruined highland valley below them, the settled stone and the pale light gone. The boundary sense running in his veins, the seam quiet beneath his feet, the hollow note steady. He thought about the Watchers. About how thirty years of losing ground during the Unraveling’s active phase had led them to this moment. About the manifestations they must have seen — the boundary’s own energy twisted and corrupted and turned against the seam. They had killed them without knowing what killing them did. Without knowing that every manifestation they eliminated sent energy back into the boundary, contributed directly to the restoration they had thought impossible. "We have to add this to the archive," he said. "Yes," Sorn agreed. Zree was up after an hour and a half, the amber eyes brighter than they had been when she collapsed at the base of the creature, the sound- mapping running at a stronger level. She took one look at the fracture line cutting northwest along the trail and said nothing, simply headed for the first fracture and got to work. They closed fractures the rest of the day. Fourteen thin places across the highland terrain, each of them requiring the precise, careful hand needed for a highland closing. The rigid seam, the stone gaps with their clean edges, the way stone carried the boundary energy differently than either earth or forest. Zree did the majority of them, her technique having adjusted to the highland terrain with the ease of someone who had done this long enough that her body just knew how to adapt. Ruk backed her up as she worked, giving her whatever energy she needed through the artifact when her reserves began to run dry. Sorn patrolled the perimeter, his shadow-walker awareness covering the area. By late afternoon they had closed the trail. Fourteen thin places healed, the fractures still visible in the highland stone but inactive, the boundary running strong and true through the highland terrain like it should have from the beginning — rigid, unyielding, following the seam’s natural pattern. Ruk stood at the end of the trail when they were finished and allowed himself the luxury of feeling the boundary sense ripple across the highland territory. The seam was quiet. The compression was gone. And the hollow note. It was clear and steady now, a solid sound with the quality of pressure that had finally been relieved. "The voice is stronger here now," Zree said beside him. She had sound-mapping at full reach, amber eyes on the middle distance. "After the closing. I can hear it better than I could before the manifestation formed." "The energy pushed back into the seam," Ruk said. "Yes," she agreed. "All of it. The corruption’s gone and now the energy is back where it belongs. The seam runs stronger here now than it did before we arrived." She looked at him. "Sorn was right. Every manifestation we kill is adding to the restoration." He looked around at the highland territory — the stone beneath their feet, sweeping out in ridges on either side of the trail, the wide shallow valleys where stone had given way to scrub, the seam running strong and true through the middle of it all. The Greythorn map stretched out behind them, most of it mapped and watched. And in this small section, recovered. active. "We’re camping here tonight," he said. "Tomorrow we head back down." "And check on Grasha’s team," Sorn added, materializing at his shoulder. "And check on Grasha’s team," Ruk agreed. He sat down on the stone as the sun went long and golden over the highland, boundary sense steady beneath his skin, hollow note ringing clear and strong in his ears. It had taken more effort to close fractures in the highlands than it had at Harrow’s End. Zree had pushed herself to the absolute limit to complete today’s work. But they were stronger for it. The seam was stronger. And they had knowledge now that they hadn’t had when they started. Every time they killed a manifestation it was a restoration. It sent energy back into the seam. Their work wasn’t just about defense anymore. It was about recovery. Ruk listened to the boundary voice, steady and patient and stronger than it had been that morning, and tried to let it ease the tension out of his muscles. The highland settled around them as night fell. When Sorn built the fire it was small and contained, the highland wind requiring a different style of fire than the flat lowland dust. Low to the ground, surrounded by a circle of stones pulled from the rock field where they had spent the night, the wood pulled from the stone crevices dried but dense and slow burning. He had the lean look of someone who had built fires in every type of terrain they had traveled through and knew instinctively what each one needed to survive. He sat back from it and looked up at the highland sky, the stars brilliant and close in the cold night air. Zree sat with her back to the fire, hands wrapped around a cup of water. The sound- mapping was set to low, putting her at a resting level but allowing her to maintain awareness of the boundary around them. She had the look of someone who needed more rest. Not injured, no damage to either her skin or her eyes, but exhausted. Like a muscle exhausted after hours of sustained exertion. Her color was off, the green of her skin faded to gray in the firelight, the amber eyes dull. Ruk sat across from her, facing the fire. "Tell me what exactly you’re expending when you use the resonance technique," he said. She looked at him. "You want the full picture." "Yes," he said. She thought about it for a moment. "Sound-mapping is active listening," she said. "Passive doesn’t use much — I can run it for days at a relatively low level without feeling drained. Pulling the notes from the boundary, mapping a thin place and actively looking for variations in the hollow note? Costs me more. But it’s manageable. Hours before I need a true rest." "But the resonance technique," Ruk prompted her. "Is amplified output," she said. "Not listening. Projecting. Taking the frequency I’m identifying and pushing it back at the source. It’s similar to how you can hear a sound but not create one yourself." She paused. "Mapping is something the sound- mapping was designed to do. Projection isn’t. It’s using the artifact against its natural purpose. Like using a river to lift water upstream." "Can you do it again," he asked her. "Yes," she said. "But not tomorrow. Not until I’ve had two days to recover from yesterday. If something else comes up — if we find another highland manifestation in the next two days — we’ll have to come up with a new approach." "The artifact method," Ruk said. "Aligning yourself with the boundary instead of pushing back against the corruption." "Helped," she said. "More than I expected. When you adjusted the artifact’s frequency to match what I was identifying — your resonance found the center faster. The boundary’s presence inside the manifestation guiding you." She paused. "I want to learn more about that. What you were doing, listening to the boundary from inside the corruption. From what I understand from the Greythorn archive, that’s not a technique the Watchers used. The shamanesses worked with the boundary from the outside edge. You were working with it from inside the manifestation." "I wasn’t inside the manifestation," Ruk reminded her. "Your awareness was," she said. "Pushing through the stone. Listening to the boundary from where it was strongest inside the corruption." She looked at him. "According to the Watchers’ records, the boundary sense is a tool for measuring the seam’s state. They don’t mention using it to communicate with the boundary from inside a corrupted source." "Because they never knew the boundary was aware," Ruk said. "Because they didn’t know," she agreed. "They were using it as a tool. You treated it like another entity." The fire popped. Highland dark all around them, the stars bright overhead, stone ridges sharp against the black sky. Sorn moved in the shadows beyond the firelight. He had been mostly silent all evening, the shadow-walker trait of thinking through things before speaking. He came to sit beside the fire, hands resting on his knees, awareness at a low idle setting. "The stone," he said. "The highland stone." "It’s old," Zree said. "Older than the Watchers," Sorn said. He lifted a hand to the rock outcropping behind them, worn smooth by millennia of harsh weather. "Older than the Unraveling. The Seam inside this stone formed long before any of the records." He paused. "All day I’ve been sensing it. The shadow-walker sense — it can read the age of things. How long they’ve been in one place. The stone remembers. Here, the stone remembers what the seam feels like." He paused again. "When we healed the fractures today — the seam settled into place faster than I would have expected if we were working with younger stone. It wanted to return to normal. Like it remembered what it was supposed to look like, and this — this closing us flawed in some way." "The boundary remembers," Zree said softly. "Here, in the highlands, the seam’s been stable long enough that the boundary sense can sink deeper. Connect with it more. The voice here is stronger because the boundary is used to hearing from this part of the seam." She looked at Ruk. "Which is why you were able to use the resonance technique so quickly." "Yes," he said. "When we first closed in on the manifestation, you said you could feel the boundary’s presence stronger here than it had been at Harrow’s End." "Stronger," Sorn agreed. "The highlands are a nexus. The seam knows this place." He looked at Ruk. "If the restoration is going to occur, it will begin here." Ruk sat with that for long minutes, letting the thoughts settle and rearrange in his mind. Thoughts on the restoration theory — that the combination of their efforts and the boundary’s own awareness would slowly, over time thicken the seam, closing thin places as they found them, sealing feeders, killing manifestations and returning their energy to the boundary. If the highlands were a nexus of sorts — if the old stone allowed the boundary to remember what it had once been — perhaps the restoration would begin in the strongest points and spread outward. Restorative efforts focused on where they would do the most good rather than spreading themselves thin trying to cover as much ground as possible. "We need to find the strongest points," he said. "The nexus points, wherever the seam is oldest and the boundary sense strongest. Start our work there and let it spread naturally." "Like a fire," Zree said. She had the far-away look of someone who had been thinking the same thing for a while. "Contain it here and let the strongest points burn brightest. We’ve been working on even ground, tossing resources at the problem in an even spread." She glanced at the small fire between them. "But if we focus on the nexus points — if we put more of ourselves into the areas where the boundary can naturally push back — we give the restoration a head start." "A new approach," Ruk said. "An improved approach," she corrected. "We maintain the even spread. The patrols, the watch rotation. But we map the strongest points and focus additional effort on them. Healing. Closing. Filling those places where the boundary is strongest with enough restored seam that its own awareness can push outwards." Sorn tilted his head at the fire, watching it blink up at them in the dark. "The records," he said. "Did the Watchers leave information about the strongest points?" Ruk shook his head. "Implicitly, maybe. The field records talk about where the holdouts were, where the disrupted terrain didn’t revert to open weave after the Watchers gave up their work. They mention places that were still stable sixty years after the Watch ended when the Greythorn began their efforts." He looked at Zree. "Those are the nexus points. The places where the seam held strong through the Unraveling’s active phase." "We need to map them," Zree said. "Have Davan cross reference the Watchers’ stability locations with the current state of the seam. Determine where the strongest points are and let that drive our focus." "When we return," Ruk said. "When we return," she agreed. She set her empty cup down, amber eyes bright now that she had replenished her fluids. She looked up at the sky, relaxed for the first time since they had set down their packs yesterday afternoon. "It’s easier to hear the boundary here," she said quietly. "Not just because of the resonance technique. But just listening to it with mapping at rest. I can feel the note deeper here. It resonates with something in me." She paused. "Reminds me of my father’s cabin in the mountains." Ruk nodded, wondering how many of the three of them had parents who spent time in the Old World. Knowing both Sorn and Davan had daughters. "Here," Zree continued, gaze still on the dark highland sky. "The boundary sounds... old. Like it knows things we can’t remember. Things the boundary taught the Watchers that they forgot after generations of monitoring data." She looked at him. "The hollow note down in the lowland valleys sounds different than it does out here. Up here, in the mountains." He listened. To the boundary sense in his veins, to the hollow note deep inside the ancient highland stone. She was right. It sounded different here than it had lower down. Lower, and deeper. Steady. Purposeful. Older than she remembered. "Older." She nodded, smile small. "Yeah." Sorn took the first watch. He slid into shadow at the edge of their firelight, sound- mapping pulling his awareness out across the highland terrain. Ruk watched him go, feeling the boundary sense move with him, an echo of what Sorn would sense. Two different methods of reading the world around them that had always complimented each other. He lay back on his bedroll and stared at the stars. So many of them. Satellites of dust and color wheeling gently in the blackness above him. The work continued, the three of them creating it with each healed fracture and closed feeder. Slow. Gradual. But happening. Building in the places they focused their energy on while the boundary’s own awareness repaired as best it could in the quieter areas. He thought of Grasha’s team to the east, fanned out across the flat ground as they closed in on whatever manifestation lay in wait for them. Smaller than the highland creature had been, he imagined, less dense. The lowland terrain gave more readily than the thick stone of the mountains. Grasha could handle it. Karg and Brek and Lenna beside her, the settlement fortification plans tucked safely in her pack. Would probably enjoy hunting in that terrain; she always seemed most herself when there was work her size to be done. Rin at the stronghold, writing. Davan at her side, their shared record growing longer with each day. Zira in the map room, working the threads of what they were learning into the palace’s model world. The work spreading out from them, distributed as it needed to be. He closed his eyes against the highland night, stone chill against his back and the boundary sense steady beneath his skin. He slept well. For the first time since they left the stronghold he slept deeply, filled up by dreams that felt more real than the world around him usually did. Dawn came swiftly to the highlands. More sharply than it did in the softer lowland terrain. One minute night, stars gleaming bright against the dark. The next morning, sun brighter than dust over the eastern horizon. Shadows skeletors stretching out from the stone beneath their feet until the sun climbed higher and washed them away. It was cold, sudden cold that hit him in the chest as he climbed to his feet. Good kind of cold. Cleansing. Like the boundary sense in his blood. Ruk was on his feet a minute before the sun had climbed much. That boundary sense fluttering through his veins, the quiet highland seam beneath his boots, the hollow note clear and strong in his ears. Everything in order, no new manifestations in the sector they had spent two days closing fractures in. Zree was already standing, sound- mapping at mid-level. The hours off her skin, color brighter now. "How do you feel," he asked her. "Ready to go home," she replied. Sorn emerged from where he had watched the night fade, shadow-walker instinct keeping him out of the rock shadow until it was time to rise. He stared at the eastern sky for a long moment, the harsh morning light of highland dawn wrapping around his shoulders before he bent to retrieve his pack. They packed up quickly. Fire put out, the ring of stones stacked and left in place of the previous group’s erection, camping area scrubbed until it looked untouched by their presence. It felt wrong to leave a mark on the highlands. Like the weight of their existence was too heavy for the ancient rock beneath their feet. Too recent for the faded memory of the boundary that ran strong through it. No trace left of their passing. Down was harder than up. More treacherous. The path down pitched with angles that made his head spin, scrub fading quickly to transition zone and transition zone quickly to lowland. Ruk felt the change when it happened. This strong point behind them. Left now to bleed outward, repairing the gaps they couldn’t reach. The boundary sense easing from stone deep back into sand at his feet. Filed away. Along with coordinates for the highland nexus point and a record of the boundary voice he heard deep in the ancient rock. Notes for the archive. Notes for the ever-growing map. By mid-morning they were back in lowland territory, canopy broken around them and the stronghold two travel days to the south. Boundary sense dimmed to its normal low level buzz, all of the thin places and closed feeders and watch rotation markers in place as they should be. "Two days," Zree said, looking down the trail. "Two days," Ruk agreed.