Anshi: The Lost Eagle of the Steppes

Out of the Blue

"It is time, Apprentice. Your brothers are fully active, engaged at this time. One travels, always seeking. The two others are hiding for their own reasons. You are the key, but first you must unlock your own doors. Your training must intensify. We have only a year, perhaps less."

"I...may I ask a boon?"

Of course."

"May I look in the Reflection of Grace? I do not seek anything except a sliver, a look. I have waited so long to see Anshi's face. Just his face. Now that he has surfaced, I just crave one look until we meet. He and I were close."

"Boons are rarely granted."

"I do not beg to communicate. I just want to see his features once and gain strength."

The old teacher knew it would be frowned upon but he was an uncle to the young man, the next youngest of his dead sister. He took a breath, then sighed in capitulation. He waved his nephew closer.

He moved to his teacher's side to the cauldron and gazed within its molten contents, swirling with the most precious metals. Thinner ribbons of all the Great gems, melting and bubbling, broke the surface like free-flowing slices of vibrant rainbows. His teacher waved a hand and as the pupil lost himself in a meditative state, they began to form a face, the face of a young man, the youngest, the most lost of them all.

A noble, beautiful face, old hauntings present on the features. Unused to hope, trying to break through like a new veneer, it was hesitant to accept a happiness, long denied. Fear of future loss, struggled to lie still within a wounded heart. He saw a brother, whose vivid green eyes were learning to shine with love for the first time. The struggle not to let what he was just finding, disappear through from imexperiened fingers. In the rhythmic rumbling of the super-heated currents, he heard his brother's lovely voice as he sang to the heavens and the hills surrounding him, in that moment. The Apprentice bowed his head and several tears fell and gently sizzled a moment on the scalding surface, then evaporated.

The teacher put his hands on the young man's shoulders and gently pulled him away and looked knowingly into sad sapphire eyes. "You must not let that happen again. Mortal tears mixing within could be a danger to him. Luckily, a few are not a threat. But anymore could interfere with the natural path he needs to walk. Remember why you are here, safe, and not walking a similar path."

"He must seek me out. I must be here to help him."

"We were sent to interfere just once. We were too late to save you both. When we arrived and he was gone, we only had time to save you. Both of the gifted ones yet one has had to fumble along the harder path because we could no longer sense him. He was broken too badly."

The student wept, hiding his face in the crook of his arm, covered in rich yellow brocade. He whispered brokenly, ridden with guilt and forbidden fury, "I had this chance. I was raised in beauty and peace. While he had nothing."

He rose up and fought to strip the robe from his body and threw it to the ground. Hie lean chest, trained in precise, chisled muscle, heaved in his passion. "It hurts to wear it. It abraids my heart."

"This is why you should not beg a boon before you are ready. You must keep striving to perfect yourself and calm your emotions. When he arrives in the future, he will need all the lessons learned by you to reach him and teach him to control his voice. It is what we do. What we have raised you to do. If Anshi does not reign his powers in, he will be destroyed by it and by someone who wants him obliterated."

"Him???"

"Yes."

"It will not be allowed. Not if I can finally protect Our Emerald."

"Then," And the master stared hard into azure eyes, "Act like the Great Gem you have been dedicated to embody. You and your brother represent two of the strongest stones within your mother's sect. We still have lots of work to do, Davaajav, Son of Daniyar and Rakhat, Sapphire of your murdered tribe. Are you worthy of the task?"

Davaajav reached down and picked up his discarded robe. He slowly wiped it free from dust and donned it once more.

"Let us pick up where I was before. I weakened. I will be ready to receive him. I will not ask to look at him again until we are reunited and fighting side beside one another."

Anshi , sitting in a grove of maple, turning red high above Qian, stopped singing and listened. He thought he had heard something. He glanced around, the back of his neck tingling. There was nothing. He looked over at Lan Ge Ban and Lan Sya Mu and they were going about stripping bark from straight limbs, preparing to fashion arrows from them. They were not disturbed. Just as he opened his mouth to sing once more, the sound was heard again. A faint hissing sound again. This time he rose, very slowly.

"I think we should move on. I just heard a hissing. Snake? Bird, perhaps?" But, instead of being very anxious, he felt... suddenly comforted.

And Davaajav felt it too. He was a more adept student than his uncle thought. The two tears he had spilled was thanks to his private reading in the vast underground library. Tears expressed by longing could bridge a small connection. And one his brother could feel. He might not be aware, but it would be a small way this protective older brother could feed Anshi tiny injections of hope and courage during the last leg of his journey West. A way to help in minute amounts and a way to do it anonymously, hidden from his loving but strict mentors. Even a good man like Davaajav needed to stretch the rules a little. Even the best of disciples needed an injection of hope. 

The Uncle took a small moment when he laughed up his sleeve as he walked away from his oh-so-smart nephew. Sometimes you needed to loosen the reins a tiny amount, when calming a young stallion. Giving him his head eases the blood and lessens the stress. He would be willing to work a bit harder during these last few months, before saving his brother would become a reality. It really would be Anshi's only lifeline. If the voice was not controlled, Anshi could disappear forever one day, Utterly destroyed by his own gift from the gods.