Chapter 112 The Ten Thousand Steps (Part 2).

It took little time for us to reach the next of the Rings. The ninth Ring. Somewhere in the descent, Alisa had informed me that the numbering of these rings started from the bottom up. Which made sense enough. If one were climbing up through this world's history, then surely it was only proper that it begin at the bottom.

A party of four stood near the walkway's end. My gaze lingered on them, for none of the four were human. They were Beastkin. Three large men with the heads of grey wolves. One smaller woman with the head of a brown horse. It should not have been a surprising sight, and yet I had seen none of the Beastkin since waking in this new world.

The woman stepped forward and laid flowers upon the last Namestone in the row. Then she rose, and their whole party began to move toward us. We gave them room. The woman's gaze fixed on Sol, where her head poked out from my collar, and lingered there for a moment. Then they began their descent again. Had they come all this way up simply to set down those flowers? It seemed so. And it seemed they were not the only ones.

Most of the Namestones I saw bore flowers. Sometimes single flowers, sometimes whole wreaths in full bloom. The hundred and eighty-first had been barren.

We moved down the line, idly glancing at the stones as we walked. Each of these Namestones bore more names than just four. The first on this Ring, the hundred and sixty-first, held the names of four parties, all scrawled upon the same stone. Sometimes there were fewer. Sometimes there were more.

Occasionally, Alisa would point someone out, and mention their great deeds. The legends they had made of themselves. There were many of these tales, and Alisa recounted them with great interest. With almost too much interest. Soon, I began to suspect she was only recounting them at all so that we moved more slowly down the ring. I did not understand why.

Solara let out her chirps. She would fly out of the pocket she had made for herself in my coat and perch upon one Namestone or another. There she would let out a single long and slow chirp, as though commemorating the fallen. Perhaps she was.

Ash was slow in her walking too. She often asked Alisa more questions about the names she mentioned, and then more questions still when Alisa answered her. Why, I could not say. Perhaps this was another of those things a Hero understood, and a Demon Queen never would.

The Namestone for the one hundred and seventieth Hunt held the most names I had seen yet. There were forty of them, each carved so small I had to stoop to read it. It seemed this had been a particularly successful Hunt. We read the names slowly, and in the reading, I found one I had not expected to find here.

Valtheris Greymane, the Heavy Sky.

I looked at the name, and then I looked at Alisa. "Girl. Is this the Archon?" I asked plainly. It was the first question I had asked her all this while.

Alisa looked at the stone and slowly nodded. "It is. In one of our classes, the Archon told us a little about it. He said that after he returned, he asked for the chance to teach the next generation. I suppose that explains-" She shrugged. She did not need to say it.

Somehow or another, that request had ended with him becoming an Archon. The head of one of their Academies. How strange, that I should find his name here. Solara let out a series of small chirps, as if she too had read the name and understood it, and was now offering her own commentary. I had no doubt she was.

"The Heavy Sky," Ash murmured, brushing the stone with her fingers. "A good name. Or, well, Mantle."

Given the nature of the man's powers, perhaps these titles were far more literal than I had first assumed. A name upon these stones meant an audience with the Divine. So the old man had stood before her once, if the premise behind these stones was to be believed at all.

We kept walking down the row. Truthfully, I did not know why we walked. Arianrhod had said that we needed to reach this Azareth by nightfall, and the sky was noticeably less bright now than when we had begun. To walk the years of this Covenant's history did us little good, and yet we did it anyway. It was to understand this Great Hunt better. That was the reason, I told myself. The only reason.

Eventually, we stood before the last stone in the row. The one for the one hundred and eightieth Hunt, in the year eight hundred and ninety-five of these people's calendar. I scanned the Namestone from its top to its bottom, and found no marking upon it at all.

The stone was blank. It was not bare. At its base lay the flowers the horse-headed woman had set down, still bright against the grey.

"What is this?" Ash asked. I had been about to ask the same thing.

"These Namestones," Alisa said, and her voice was hard, "are here to remember those who returned. Those who returned, and were worth remembering." Her voice was colder now, and faintly distant. "Nobody worth remembering returned from this Hunt. It's the only one that's blank." Alisa leaned down, and touched the stone. She touched it gently. "It's not well known outside of Azareth itself, but the one hundred and eightieth Hunt was a disaster. They say half the reason the one hundred and eighty first Namestone isn't just as empty is because they didn't want to have two blank Namestones in a row. I don't know how true that is, though." Alisa said, glaring at the stone with more venom than I had ever seen from her.

Solara let out a small chirp. She left my collar, and dropped down onto the snow-dusted walkway beside Alisa. Alisa looked at the bird, and the bird looked right back. The girl took a deep breath, and something of her normal composure returned. Slowly, Alisa brushed one of Solara's black wings, and Sol allowed it.

"Is this why you're here?" Ash asked. Alisa looked up at the Hero. Ash's voice was soft, and kind. "She said that your father objected to the Great Hunt in the... Council of Lords, I think she called it. And she said something else." Ash did not press further, though she could have.

And I recalled Arianrhod's words well. Is he aware that his second daughter now means to join it? The girl's reasons were her own, and I had not meant to pry. Not when my words could hurt without meaning to. It seemed Ash believed now was the time.

We watched Alisa. Her hand had stilled on Sol's feathers. She looked at us, then back at the Namestone, for some time. A very long time. Long enough that I thought she might not say anything at all.

"My sister was part of the one hundred and eightieth Hunt," Alisa eventually said. There was no sound around us, and so even her whisper carried. "She did not return. Nobody in her party did. My father sent scouts out to the few holdouts in Meria, and they did not find them there either."

"And you believe that this sister of yours has not perished in the Hunt," I said. It was clear enough from the way the girl described it.

"Because she did not," Alisa said. "I am sure of it." The girl rose back to her feet.

Ash and I shared a look. Solara let out a small chirp and flew back to her place in my collar, where she once again folded herself. Arianrhod had said that Alisa's father objected to the Great Hunt. No doubt this was why. And no doubt this was why the girl had been so eager to join us.

"I hope you remember what I said, Alisa," I began. The girl looked at me, one eyebrow raised. Perhaps surprised that I had used her name. "I have no desire to travel with someone who does not want to return alive."

"I plan to," Alisa said. "I have no intention of dying out in the Blight."

The girl's conviction was true. I had seen conviction in a thousand eyes, and few had been as true as this girl's. "Good," I said. I turned from her and back towards the Namestone. The only blank stone on this entire crater, if the girl was to be believed. There were still flowers beneath it.

"Alisa." Ash pointed. "There are still flowers here, even if there aren't any names. That's someone remembering, isn't it?"

The same thought had crossed my mind. The girl regarded Ash for a moment, then looked back at the bare stone. Her gaze lingered on the flowers for some time. "Maybe I'll bring one too," she murmured to herself.

Then she started walking back along the path we had come down, her back straight. I looked at the Hero. "An astute observation, Ash," I said.

"Sometimes you miss the obvious even when it's right in front of you," Ash said. "You just need a little reminder."

I did not think she was only talking about the flowers now. Solara let out a chirp, as if she alone knew exactly what the Hero was saying.

We began our descent again down the Ten Thousand Steps, though less than half that number remained to us now. There were more people the farther we went. Many of them did not seem to be aiming to climb out of the crater at all, but rather to visit one of the lower Rings.

There were humans aplenty, but unlike in Koralis, there were far more of the other races. I saw elves and Beastkin and Lizardfolk in even measure. And of course, there were demonbloods. In Koralis, I had only ever seen demonbloods who were, in some part, human. It had been easy to pick them out there. It was less easy here. The first of the Lizardfolk I saw had the faintest of nubs upon her head. The nubs were all but invisible against the scales. A party of elves passed us, and all four of them had red eyes. It was harder to spot my blood in these other races, so much so that I might not have seen them at all had I not been looking so closely. This Azareth was a far different city than Koralis. Or perhaps it only seemed so, this close to the Great Hunt.

Somewhere past the fifth Ring, the stairs crossed into the shadow of a rib. For a hundred paces we walked through a band of darkness. Solara let out a long chirp at the sky, as if insulting the rib for blocking the light.

We glanced at the first of the Namestones on every Ring we passed, but we did not linger longer than that. It was enough to confirm what I had suspected. The lower we went, the more names each of these stones carried. By the time we reached something approaching an end to the stairs, the sky had darkened considerably.

We stopped by the fourth of these Rings to eat. We had food in our pack -the stew Martha had saved for us. We spread out across the fourth Ring. The food was cold, and so eating would have been difficult. Solara let out a mighty chirp and loosed a hiss of fire, and that problem was solved. It was solved too thoroughly, perhaps. She had come close to burning the stew. We ate anyway.

We had seen some other people do this on the Rings we had already crossed. If this was some form of blasphemy, then we were not the only ones to commit it. Solara refused to leave the pocket in my coat. And so I fed her by hand. The phoenix took to this with great satisfaction.

Eventually, we rose again, and began the descent once more. We came to the second of the Rings of Remembrance, and here there was a small throng of people, moving back and forth across the walkways.

I had noticed it before, and I noticed it more now. As we descended, each of the Namestones had been dressed in more flowers and finery than the last. These people valued their legends far more than they valued their present.

Five hundred steps below, at the very foot of the stairs, lay the first of the Rings. The crowd was thickest here. On any of the other walkways, they would not have fit at all. Leading away from the stairs, perhaps a few hundred paces off, stood the great white gates of Azareth. A line of people stretched out from them.

There was far less snow here, and where there was no snow, there was only black earth. That, at least, was as I remembered. This crater had been mostly black, once.

We slowed. I was not tired, not with Essence. Neither was Alisa, though she was breathing harder than she had at the top. It was Ash who took each step more carefully than the last. I stepped forward and joined her on the stair. She looked across at me, then back down toward that small throng of people.

"We do not have to see," I murmured, loud enough that only she would hear. "We can simply go and join the line."

Ash hesitated at that. I took a step, and saw that she had not taken hers. I waited, and the Hero joined us. Behind us, Alisa was carefully maintaining her distance of two steps. She caught me looking, and glanced away.

"What good will hiding do?" Ash asked. "Might as well see now, rather than spend hours wondering what's there."

There was sense enough in that.

Solara let out a small chirp from my collar. She poked more of her head out. Then she flew to the side. Ash held out her hands, and the phoenix landed in her palms. The Hero smiled, and unbuttoned the top of her coat. Solara flew inside, and hid herself the way she had with me. "Thanks, Sol," Ash said. Solara was, as ever, too clever for her own good.

We approached. There were voices, a dozen of them, all fighting over one another. There were soldiers too, dressed in gleaming silver armor. They stood before the first Namestone beside the stairs, keeping the people at a distance.

"I'm surprised they kept it the same as all the others," Ash murmured.

"It's not so surprising as that," I said. "For what this is, it's important that it looks the same as the rest."

Some in the crowd watched us come, though I received the impression they would have watched anyone come down the steps. A few of them nodded their heads in our direction. Ash waved. Solara let out a loud chirp. And then, finally, after hours of walking, we were done with the Ten Thousand Steps.

I stepped onto flat ground, and took a deep breath. I turned and looked back up at the stairs, ascending into a blur somewhere far above. Perhaps half the reason there were so many people in this Azareth was that they had made this journey once, and had no wish to make it again from the other, harder side.

Ash and Alisa moved to join the crowd beside the first Namestone. If there was any difference at all between this Ring and the others, it was that the first Namestone had more space between itself and the steps.

"Enough flowers for today," one of the four guards said. He was a tall man, the bottom half of his face covered entirely by a mane of golden hair. "Enough with ya. It's late enough. Pay your tributes tomorrow if you have 'em." This elicited some grumbling from the crowd. Many of the people I saw carried elaborate wreaths. "Don't tell me ya lot got any problem with it," he grinned. He had fangs in place of teeth. I could see no trace of my blood in him, and yet it was clear he was not just a Beastkin either.

How odd. It occurred to me only now that the breaking of the System's shackles had not merely allowed crossbreeding between demonkind and the other races, but between all of the races themselves. If I had to guess, this man was some strange mixing of Beastkin and human.

Ash stepped forward, and I joined her. Alisa stepped in behind us. Some of the crowd parted as the Hero made her way through. There were mutters, but Ash heeded none of them. She stepped close to the front of the crowd and looked out. I could see it well enough from just behind her.

To remember the bravest warriors who walked the first Hunt, at the start of the New Dawn.

The First Party

The Divine, She Who Has No Name

Hassa, the First Sword

Rhanon, the First Shield

Lowena, the First Eye

Ash stiffened. It was clear enough which name stood for whom. Rhanon was some version of Ronan. And this Lowena was a perversion of Elowen. Which meant that Hassa was…

I glanced at Ash. I had watched a painted man die beneath a painted sword upon a festival stage. The Divine had said that pride claimed him, before running him through with a golden sword. The Hero was very still. I reached out and set a hand on Ash's shoulder. Solara let out a long chirp, long enough that some of the other watchers and the soldiers both looked our way. We ignored all of them and simply stared.

"She who has no name, huh?" Ash eventually said. It sounded like a question, but I did not know whom she was asking. The only thing I could do was press the hand that rested on her shoulder. What that would accomplish, I did not know. Remind her that I stood behind her, perhaps.

Ash turned, and she was walking back through the crowd. I followed. Alisa had not joined us among the watchers. She waited just beside them, her arms folded and her chin raised. We joined her past the crowd's edge.

"Many people make their pilgrimage here just to see the First Namestone," Alisa said. "It is said that laying a single petal atop it is enough to absolve one of a lifetime of sins."

So that was what she believed we had been doing. "You do not seem to be in any great hurry to lay something down yourself," I said.

"I'm knowledgeable about many things, but I am not as fervent as-" Alisa's mouth snapped closed. Whatever name she had been about to speak died just behind her lips. I could guess which one it had been. "Are we entering the city, then?"

"Yes," I said. The sky had gone from grey to a deep dark, and the night's chill had begun creeping back in. In Ash's collar, I could scarcely see Solara at all, save for her beak.

Before us stood the great gates of Azareth, a city built beneath the corpse of a dragon I had slain. Now it was a monument to something else entirely. Between all the hunts, there had been thousands of names. Not one of them had been mine, who had made this great hole in the first place.

The Hero walked quickly, and I noticed that she wore the hint of a smile. It confused me, after what we had just seen.

"Did the sight not trouble you?" I asked quietly.

Ash looked across at me. She smiled, and I saw that it was not just a smile. There was sadness in it, but not quite as much of it as I had expected. "I would be lying if I said it didn't. But- but maybe it's better to be remembered a little wrongly than to not be remembered at all."

I nodded slowly. I had asked myself the same question once, over four lines that had gotten everything about me wrong. And I had arrived at the same answer she had. It was not the same, but perhaps it was close enough.

"Maybe so," I agreed eventually.

I reached out and touched Ash's arm. She paused mid-stride, and put her hand in mine. Behind us, Alisa was staring at our joined hands with far more intensity than they deserved.

Solara let out a mighty chirp from Ash's collar as we joined the line leading into Azareth.