“To Tamer!”

  “To Tamer!”

  The cacophony of grunts that ring out in the central part of the village become even louder as they reverberate off the gem-studded ceiling formed by the tree that Flower grew just after she Evolved. The gems sparkle in the afternoon light, acting almost like unmoving disco balls as they send coloured sparkles of light everywhere.

  I raise my cup of pseudo-alcoholic substance with tears prickling at my eyes and a lump blocking my throat. The last forty days – thirty-eight if I’m being exact – have gone by in the blink of an eye. And now the final goodbye is here…I don’t know what to say.

  But that I’m expected to say something is clear by the hundreds of pairs of eyes looking at me and the hush that has fallen over the gathering.

  This feast reminds me of the one we held after the victory over the red leader. Although no one has died, the sense of loss and celebration despite, or perhaps because of it, is tangible. Even if the loss technically hasn’t happened yet.

  River nudges me subtly and I feel a sense of comfort at feeling her at my back. For all I know that I’m going to lose far too many of those I’ve come to know, I won’t be losing all of them. The realisation allows me to clear my throat enough to speak. Surrounded by samurans who are only a bit shorter than I am – and some who are taller – I ask the earth to lift me slightly. The slight mound that shifts under my feet and raises me in the air is enough for me to be able to see everyone, not just those closest. And to allow them to see me. By this point, I’m comfortable enough with being the centre of attention that that doesn’t bother me, though I do sometimes wonder at the fact that so many people actually want to listen to me. Crazy.

  I still don’t know what to say, though, and take my time looking out over the crowd. Everywhere I look, I see signs of my presence. From the coloured necklaces and hides that many of them are wearing, to the tapestries which decorate the walls around the area. From the chairs on which the eldest are relaxing, to the fires which burn merrily on the edges of the covered area. From the way carcasses are spread around to the way Unevolved and Evolved are mingling as equals. I see my impact.

  It’s not perfect. The older Evolved do tend to stick together and reject the advances of any Unevolved. There’s also still some obvious division among those who recently attacked our village, whether from Flying-blade’s village, or Tree-whisperer’s. I didn’t ask, but it was impossible not to notice that the survivors of the battle had been allowed to keep their lives, though the little I observed – intentionally not interacting with them – indicates that they’re having to pay their debt in ways that would usually be considered too humble for Evolved to do. And little by little, the divisions are relaxing.

  It’s worlds different from where it was when I first arrived. And I’m hopeful that this new way of doing things may be here to stay – I’ve been withdrawing myself more and more from daily village life, and I officially abdicated as leader more than a month ago. It hasn’t all collapsed so far, at least.

  And suddenly I realise that I know what to say.

  “When I first walked through those gates, I came here as a captive.” It isn’t what the samurans around me were expecting if the increased hush and the colours flashing through their spikes are anything to go by. “At least, that’s what everyone else saw. In fact, I came here to free Lathani, who many of you know as both my Companion and the cub of the Great Predator. I was helped by River, the first samuran I Bound to me. When I walked in, I didn’t know what would happen. I didn’t know whether I would make it out again. But if not, I was determined to take as many with me as I could.” I pause and look around.

  My audience is rapt. Very few know exactly how this all started. Even most of those of the original village only know the basics of the story, not the details.

  “The second time I walked through the gates, I did so as a conqueror. I came to seek the submission of the village, forcibly if necessary, in order to save it. Both from the Great Predator who would not tolerate threats to her cub, and from themselves. From the leader who had sacrificed all of their hatchlings for the sake of more power.

  “Since then, I have imposed my own culture and my own ideas on them. On you. I have introduced you to the way that my people operate, and I haven’t always taken fully into account the differences between you and them. And for that, I’m sorry.” My apology is even more unexpected, but I feel that it’s right to give. “But I am not sorry for showing you a different way. For opening your eyes to the fact that change is possible – and sometimes change is necessary.

  “It’s your turn. Tomorrow, I will be gone, and it’s for you to decide where you go from here. How much of what I have shown and taught you will you continue to engage with? How much will you discard? That’s for you to decide. You are the People, and it is your right, no, your responsibility to decide what that will mean going forward.

  “And when I say ‘you’, I mean all of you. Evolved, Unevolved, Pathwalker, Warrior, Elder, hunter, farmer, crafter, tanner, metal-worker, enchanter, forager, carver…. You have learned that you are capable of so much more than you thought before. You have learned that you do not have to have magical powers to make things, that you do not have to be physically powerful to be able to protect your village, that you do not have to be restricted only to being a guard if you are physically imposing. That life does not have to be only about survival, but can also be about beauty. If there’s anything that I hope you will keep, it is that you realise you can be so much more than you were once taught.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “To the People.”

  “To the People!” chorus the samurans around me, the sound almost deafening. I reshape the earth beneath my feet to flatten it out – having a hump of soil sitting around is likely to be a trip-hazard to everyone, including me.

  The rest of the afternoon passes by in a blur of conversations accompanied by almost-alcoholic liquid which I clear out of my system as soon as it becomes more than a pleasant buzz in my veins. Every time I speak to someone, we each take a swig of the liquid, which means that those around me who don’t have Flesh-Shaping – which is everyone but me and Tarra – quickly gets rather inebriated.

  Don’t drink too much, I warn those who are going to be leaving with me tomorrow. We’re leaving at dawn.

  Acknowledgements ring out, though at least half of them carry the sense of ‘spoilsport’.

  Can’t you just heal us? Iandee asks persuasively.

  And spend the first hour healing all of you? No, I tell him with some humour. I’m exaggerating – not enough are coming with me for it to take an hour.

  Don’t worry – I’ll prepare some draughts to remove the majority of the effects, River assures him. I roll my eyes at Iandee’s blatant happiness at her words. They’ll make you wish you were dying for a few minutes as they force you to violently void your bowels and stomach, but they’ll do the job, she continues. I laugh out loud as Iandee’s emotions over the Bond do an abrupt U-turn.

  I’ll just not drink too much, he promises nervously and then pointedly withdraws from the conversation as much as his Bond allows. And since all of those who have decided they will join me and who had a Dominate Bond now have a Companion Bond, he can at least make himself feel a little more distant than usual if he wants even if he can’t cut the connection at all.

  I continue mingling with the crowd, unable to stop myself from keeping an eye on the passage of the sun. Unlike the last feast I was part of, this one we will withdraw from by sunset. We need to have a good night. And I still have someone else I need to visit.

  “You still don’t know just how much I appreciate what you did for me,” a Pathwalker says, drunkenly leaning forwards to rub her muzzle against the side of my head in their most casual gesture of platonic affection. It’s Bares-claws, or rather, Beast-friend as she is now – and that was a rather audacious choice which she defied Pathwalker tradition to claim for herself since it was her own proposal. “And now I’ll never be able to pay it back.”

  “You’ve told me many times how grateful you are,” I remind her. “And just as before, I will say that the best repayment is to take what I’ve taught you and teach others in your turn. Teach others to respect those they Bond with, start a new way of animal husbandry – of partnership. And don’t forget what I told you to do in a few days.”

  “But it’s not for you! Why will you not let me come with you?” She’s drunk enough to sound like I’ve killed her puppy by not letting her come, even though we both agreed that it was best that she stay here. I won’t deny that I’m sad too – we’ve spent a significant amount of time together in the last forty days, trying to get her to her Evolution. And then even after Evolution, we continued to work together for me to teach her what I’ve learned in the last year of my own Class. And that kind of bond is hard to lose. But she’s needed far more here than with me, and ultimately, I know her well enough to know that she wouldn’t be happy leaving both her people and world behind.

  I do my best to placate her – not too difficult with her as drunk as she is – and then move away to speak with others, mourning the breaking of another bond – and Bond – as I do so.

  She hasn't got my Class, not exactly. I wondered whether she might, given how much time we spent together working on her channels, talking about what mine are like, me doing my best to show her what the Bonds are like from my side of things. But no. She Evolved as usual, though she did get two abilities out of it, one of which was clearly influenced by what we did together.

  The first of her abilities is much as I was expecting – a sort of aura control or perhaps pheromones. She can exude something that encourages those around her to feel a certain way. Usually she uses it to calm beasts – she still spends most of her time in the farming area. However, she’s capable of enraging those around her, or making them feel intensely protective of her. I wasn’t affected while I still had a Bond with her, but once I released the Bond, I realised just how strong they were. I could control myself, but it was a near thing when she hit me with her strongest dose once while we were testing it. The pheromones encouraging protection of her were the hardest to resist – I guess because there was already genuine feeling behind them.

  Her second ability is almost like an amalgamation of Tame and Dominate, based on trust. It starts out as transactional, usually Bares-claws exchanging obedience for food, shelter, healing, or all of the above. At the start, it’s fairly weak. But as the trust between her and her Bound grows, the Bond becomes stronger and more solid, allowing Bares-claws to ask more of her Bound. It’s interesting, and I’m not entirely sure what to think about it. Especially since she was able to prove that she’s capable of using it on other samurans, as long as they engage in the initial transactions. At least it does have to be intentional to a certain extent with sapient beings – she can’t sneak in a Bond while asking someone to fetch something for her in exchange for Energy Heart fragments, for example. But I trust her to be careful with it. Ultimately, I have to since I won’t be here.

  The Tier three Pathwalkers, Shrieks, and the top Elder of the Unevolved faction on the council are the only ones who know that she’s capable of Binding other samurans. We decided that it was something best kept under wraps for now.

  That reminds me that I still have some Bonds I need to release. I look through the crowd, searching for Tarra, Windy, Flower, and Shrieks. As the most influential and the most powerful, they are the only Bonds I still have that I cannot keep. I left them until last because I didn’t want to risk them turning on me. Not that I’m worried about most of them – Windy is the only one who might decide to take advantage, but I’m reasonably confident that she won’t.

  She’s already got everything she wants – she’s Enlightened, one of the leaders, and with powerful magic of her own. The only thing she might want is to be the leader rather than one of the leaders. But since the most recent ranking fight ended up with a draw between the three of them, she can’t complain too much. Attacking me serves no purpose for her except spite – if anything, it puts her in a dangerous position since she knows I will respond with violence if she goes for me. But, of course, when it comes to Windy, I can’t discount her being motivated by spite alone.

  Best leave her until last. And after that, it will be time to go. The sun is almost on the horizon.

  here!

  here!

  here!

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