Akiyoh braced a hand on the doorframe, shielding his eyes from the bright morning light as he stepped out of the Jawbone manor house.

The eyas in the front courtyard had been making a racquet all morning.

It had rained all night and the ground was mud. Water was still dripping from the eaves.

Polienne in the kitchen and Lieran at the furnace had regaled him with the tale of their very interesting night.

“It looked like a deer?” Akiyoh had asked.

Polienne had shrugged. “Angelico was the only one who saw it.”

Poachers and bandits weren’t common at all in the Jawbone for a reason.

If the Honey Roe Company had been a legitimate merchant vessel, perhaps the eyas would have let them pass.

But perhaps not. The mark of lesser Death Sorcery was mysterious indeed, and not completely within even Akiyoh’s predictions.

Somebody had lit the brazier on the porch. Akiyoh took a seat behind it and warmed his hands.

The boat of the Honey Roe Company had been docked at the pier, and everybody was working together to unload the cargo into the front courtyard.

Neeno and Kennia were starting to write out an inventory, and Darakan consulted their notes as he stalked back and forth, from the pier to the courtyard, directing the crates here and there to line them up in an organised fashion.

Lieran came out of the kitchen with a tray that he set down brusquely on the low table beside Akiyoh and the brazier.

There was a pot of Akiyoh’s medicinal tea and a steaming bowl of breakfast porridge, with a little side dish of what Angelico had the presence of mind to save for him last night.

Polienne, hair tied back, stepped out of the kitchen with his apron and bone saw. “Any special requests?” He called.

“No,” said Akiyoh. “This is enough.”

“So, we can have the rest?” Said Lieran.

Akiyoh blew on a spoonful of porridge. “It’s best fresh, isn’t it?”

“We can have the rest!” Shouted Polienne, drawing in everybody still at work in the yard.

They all came running in, churning up the mud.

There was push and shoving for the kitchen. Some of them were blocking the door.

“I’m just going to help chop it up.”

“I don’t trust you. No way.”

“That’s Angelico’s kill,” said Kennia diplomatically. “How would you like to split it?”

Angelico looked disappointedly at how much Akiyoh had in his bowl. “Umm… I don’t really want to share…”

“Who are you kidding, you can’t finish that by yourself.”

“Hey, don’t you remember that time I shared some of mine with you?”

“You and I are close, right? So you definitely have to give me some.”

“I’ll duel you,” declared Lieran, raising his voice above everyone else’s. “And I’ll take my pick when you lose.”

“Ooh, back to the classic rules,” said Darakan. “I like it.”

“Should we do that?” Angelico and the rest of them looked to the porch at Master Akiyoh.

Akiyoh sipped his tea dismissively. “Do as you like, just don’t kill each other.”

A loose circle formed in the courtyard, breaking and re-forming as the combatants had at each other, striking and grappling.

Darakan called out the fights and tracked the wagers, everybody heckling their kith, whether they were winning or losing.

They passed the midday like that; shouting and sparring under the overcast sky.

The sun came out and everybody took a bath. Akiyoh got up and strung out the laundry lines so they could hang up their clothes to dry.

They also cleaned the mud off the crates and their own boots, which they lined up on the porch outside the house.

---

Neeno handed Akiyoh an inventory of the spoils from the Honey Roe Company.

Akiyoh flipped through them, scanning and checking the tallies against everything lined up in the front courtyard.

“Is this everything?” Asked Akiyoh.

“We’re opening the last ones now.” Said Neeno.

Somebody somewhere slammed a crate.

“Carefully now.”

“That wasn’t me.”

“Hey!”

One of the last crates burst open, and a creature came bolting out.

The thing was neighing and hiccuping like its life depended on it.

It ran, duking and dodging everyone who came to surround it.

“Watch out!”

“It’s so cute.”

“That thing kicked me to the ground, you know.”

The creature did indeed look like something between a young deer and a young goat.

There was a stump on its forehead where its horn had been severed, and its legs were covered in peculiar little glowing white scales. Unlike the lustre of the precious scales of a serpent, this creature’s scales were radiant with a luminosity like the Holy Disk’s light.

It paced, stressed, back and forth in the mud, and no matter how it stamped its hooves, it didn’t leave any footprints.

The creature had backed itself up against the water.

“Give it some space,” called Akiyoh.

The eyas backed off, but the creature’s adrenaline must have been running out. It staggered in place, uncertain about their retreat, but finally collapsed.

Everybody closed in around it, space forgotten.

“What should we do?”

“It’s not dead, is it?”

“Go get some water, and carrots, ” ordered Akiyoh. “And fetch a blanket. Lift it carefully. We can put it in the barn storehouse.”

---

Priestess Neary arrived later that afternoon, cooing over the creature just like everybody else, instead of doing her job assessing the eyas’ soarplay and spiritus against benchmarks from raptors in the Inner Sky.

“Master Akiyoh said this is a serow,” said Angelico. The sack of carrots in his hand was empty. “Do you know about these creatures, Priestess?”

“Why yes I do,” said Neary. “There are a few different kinds, and this is the rare and legendary one-horned serow. There was a one-horned serow spotted on perhaps the highest precipice of Stratos, higher than even birds can fly. ”

“Wow, you saw that, Priestess?”

“Oh, no,” said Neary, “It’s written in the records of Mount Majwa. It happened a long time ago, when the Grand Chancellor was an eyas himself, and he flew up to Ouranos to join the Inner Sky.”

“There was another serow in the Jawbone, too” said Angelico. “It was killed, or left for dead by poachers. I think that was its mother.”

“Hmm,” said Neary. She bit her lip when she touched the serow’s broken horn. “The nature of these creatures is to ascend to thinner air and higher conditions. Its mother should have taken it up the mountain.”

“I wonder, then, why didn’t it?”

“Maybe there was something wrong with her?” Guessed the Priestess.

“Well, she’s already dead,” cut in Akiyoh, entering the barn. “And this one is actually old enough to go off on its own. It should have already separated from its mother.”

“Alright, I defer to the serow expert,” Neary bowed cheekily to Akiyoh. “What happened to the poachers?”

“Ah, we handled them,” said Angelico bashfully. “Oh! Priestess, we didn’t save anything for you.”

“Oh Angelico, don’t tease me,” said the Priestess. “I know you know I’m a heretic, but there are some things the priesthood just can’t do.” She smiled fondly. “Nevertheless, you have my appreciation. It’s the thought that counts.”

“In any case,” said Akiyoh, glowering at her, “you’re supposed to be evaluating their time trials. All of you, get out of the barn.”

Nobody wanted to do that.

“How about this,” said Darakan, “If we can clear the course to Neary’s new benchmarks, we get double the free time tonight.”

“Alright,” said Akiyoh, “But if you fail your time trials, your free time tonight is halved.”

They all wailed. “What?!”

“I’m in,” said Angelico. The serow was chewing on the carrot sack in his hands. He scruffed its mane and pressed its face to his. “I’m going to be right back. Let’s play lots and lots later, okay?”

He sped out of the barn.

“Wait, me too!” Everybody raced out after him.

They flew off, and with a funny little smile to Akiyoh, Neary also departed in order to make her observations.

Akiyoh was left as the serow’s only company.

“You’ve eaten all our carrots,” said Akiyoh. “You better be feeling stronger.”

The serow snorted cutely.

Akiyoh examined the edges of its severed horn with the pad of his thumb.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine,” he said. “Because you’re still young enough, it will grow back.”

---

That evening, the serow, much healthier now, couldn’t deny its nature any longer. It was feeling the call to go up the mountain.

Outside, at the edge of the courtyard, it wandered back and forth out of the trees, wanting to be accompanied by all its new friends.

Akiyoh watched from the open window in his quarters on the second floor of the manor house as the eyas of the Jawbone tried to cajole the serow into making the journey by itself.

“We can’t go with you.”

“You have to go by yourself.”

“You can do it!”

The serow whinnied and bounded back to them, where it snuggled its face into their laps, nervous and afraid.

“Look there,” they said, pointing to a crag up the mountain visible from the manor yard. “If you go up there, you can see us, and we can see you. We’ll watch.”

“Go! Go! Go!” They cried, hyping it up, as it ran into the trees, determined this time.

In Akiyoh’s quarters, the kettle on the brazier whistled.

Akiyoh left the window open, and went to pour himself some tea. He selected his favourite teacup, the one with a plum blossom engraved into the bottom.

On his low desk beside the pile of his latest paintings, Priestess Neary had left a medicine box, ingredients pre-portioned in each little compartment.

There was also the pot of medicinal tea from this morning, brewed with the Honey Roe Company’s spoils that Akiyoh had been savouring all day.

He mixed up his prescription, downed it, and followed up with a sip of tea.

Then Akiyoh went to the window on the other side of his room, the one facing Inward, and opened it just a crack.

Luminous as the precious scales of a serow, the radiant light of the Holy Disk on the highest precipice of Celestial Mountain beamed in and cut a thin white line down the length of Akiyoh’s room.

According to Neary, the Hierarch wouldn’t be making a wingdance tonight.

What a fool, thought Akiyoh. As if anything in all the Eyrie could compare to the Disk, the glory and treasure of Heaven.

It was so pure, and so beautiful, it left Akiyoh speechless every time.

He opened the window wider.

The eyas in the courtyard suddenly hollered and cheered.

Akiyoh huffed wistfully. Seems like the young serow had made it up to the crag.

Everybody on the ground went wild.

“You did it! Keep going!”

“Go higher! Go to the top!”

“Let’s go together!”

On the other side of the room, the window shutters clattered violently at the rush of wings from the eyas in the courtyard taking off into the night.

The lap they flew around the manor house took them across the window Akiyoh was slouched at.

Stark and backlit, they tore jaggedly over the crisp and perfect shape of the Holy Disk.

Their wingbeats were strong and efficient. Their course was true. Their formation minimised weaknesses.

Neary’s evaluation from that afternoon was on his desk. Things were looking promising. What the eyas needed most now was testing, and the upcoming Caritas Festival would be an important proving ground.

Once they were all cleared of their condition, they could go up to the Inner Sky and cause an uproar. They could turn the Disk to Hativa Quarter, and Akiyoh, from this old manor house in the Jawbone swamp, could be with it all the time, every night, as if he were the Hierarch of Heaven.

Akiyoh swirled his teacup, where the Disk’s reflection floated like a petal.

He drank down the last of the tea and licked the blood from his teeth, savouring the taste.