Arcana: Among the Spheres

The Shokkal Mountain People

by Erikku Amundsen

Long Year Woman to her grandson, Spring Fed; Valley of Sunrise:

In the realm of Shackled Gods, rising up beyond the atmosphere are great mountains where, in ages past, the deities who allied with the dragons in their bid for power were imprisoned. Deep in the valleys live people who have settled here from other realms and grown pale in the shadows of these giant mountains. High in the ranges, however, live other people, born to this realm and set with the task of soothing the dreams of the imprisoned.

There's my boy, my handsome boy. Promise your grandmother you'll take that charm I made on your solitary hunt tomorrow, and block your ears tightly with the wax of the bee. Yes, I know you need your hearing to help you hunt, but the solitary hunt is a silly thing and better you come home with nothing in your hunting pouch than not come home at all.

The mountains are a dangerous place, 'specially for a handsome one such as you've become. All about, things waiting to steal your blood or your life or your spirit. Pennangalans still haunt the slopes--I don't care that one hasn't been sighted since I was young--and the demon bears will be down from their caves soon, now that the melting has begun. All of this and all the other that you've heard, you know what to do with, for even against a demon bear or a gut-slithering pennangalan you know to keep your wits and do what's right.

But with the Mountain People, you cannot count on your wits. They'll sing your spirit right out of you and down their throats, given the chance. And with you being as handsome as you've turned out to be (you're a pride to your family, just like your father at that age) it won't be two hours into your hunt when some mountain girl decides to take you into her sight. The one that you'll see will be beautiful, make no mistake, tall and strong, dark of hair and bright of eye. Stop your ears up tight, boy; for if you hear the faintest peep of her voice, you'll belong to her forever.

She'll lead you back to her settlement and steal your features and your face and give them to her man. The mountain people are born scarcely human and have to steal their looks from the people in the valley, from us. The mountain girl who found you took hers from some poor child of the valley and they'll take your looks just as fast. When they're done with you, who knows? Maybe they'll eat you, cut you up and boil your bones in great iron pots. Maybe they'll make you slave 'til your dying day in their mines. Maybe they'll just push you off a cliff and let you rot until your head and innards free themselves and condemn you to the false life as a blood hungry pennangalan. I don't know. Just listen to your grandmother. I don't want to lose you the way your father's sister went, all those years ago.

	Typical Shokkal Mountain Person
	Air 3 (Survival) Fire 5 (Singing) Earth 4 (Harsh Climates) Water 5 (Empathy) Powers: Voice: The Shokkal language can be understood by any sentient creature, regardless of what languages the listener knows. Persuasion: Between the sheer beauty of their voices and their keen understanding of emotion, the Mountain People have abilities of persuasion that are often likened to the powers of harpies or sirens, though there is nothing inherently magical about their voices.

Testament of Minimus, Adept of the Broken Sword (as recorded by Chickenfoot Scratch of Chamber Platinum):

I chased the Iron Man's minions to a mountainous sphere. I have never seen mountains like this; trying to describe them would only serve to illustrate what a feeble grasp of the Tongue I have. They were big. Bigger than you can possibly attempt to imagine. We must have been quite high, otherwise it would not have reminded me so much of the fight on Catchbreath. I tracked Night Breather for about seven days before I caught him. The armor must have slowed him down considerably in that terrain. We fought, and I won, eventually, kicking him off a narrow ledge onto the rocks below. And, of course, he used his power of black breath to poison me during our battle.

As I told you, twice before we fought, and twice before, he used his powers to bring the stiffness of death to my limbs. I knew the experience well enough to expect it, and know that it wore off fairly quickly, but I had never been hit with quite so much of his power. At first, I feared that I had died, and perhaps my spirit took possession of my body long enough to take revenge on my murderer. I lay in the snow, staring up at the sky, a beautiful sky, for a little while (it could not have been that long, but it seemed so to me) feeling the natural cold creep into my unnaturally still bones. I waited, I think, for either my spirit to get the hint, or to die of exposure--I wasn't feeling inclined to be picky.

So when I met my first of the Mountain People, I thought she was Red Sun, come to take me to my rest. When she spoke--well, sang--it didn't really do much to dissuade me of that. I know the language, but I cannot do it justice. You'll have to write it down as you imagine it, because there isn't a way to translate:

I saw you fall
(Will you live?)
(Please live)
(Will you be my friend?)

You see, but you have to imagine that it wasn't my frog-croak of a voice; this was a voice that would either send your Wailer family into mass suicide or to these very mountains for lessons. And yes, everything they say betrays every subtext and nuance of how they feel.

That was why, I think, no one has ever come back from the high ranges where the Mountain People live. It's so hard not to love them immediately; I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to leave. Yes, I did, but that was the Iron Man's fault. I have heard some of the things the folks from the valley have said to your explorers when they get there. It's nonsense. They aren't cannibals, nor are they monsters--just people, like you and I, only beautiful and sincere in a way that, again, I cannot describe any better than I can the mountains. What can I tell you about them? They aren't monsters. I want you to tell that to everyone who goes through your gate to Shackled Gods. They aren't monsters..."

Shokkal Mountain People copyright © 1999 Erikku Amundsen, used with permission.