Lead the Way

One. Two. Three shots rang out into the air, viscous purple smoke following in their wake. A high pitched song followed as they went, twisting in mid-air to travel straight through the man's widebrimmed hat. The spell didn't take very long to take effect, and a great force pushed him down onto the ground, headfirst. "Okay! Okay! I ain't runnin' no more!" He threw his arms into the air and waved them about frantically, making x's in the air. His beak remained firmly planted in the dirt as the gunslinger approached. Tiyaay kept her gun trained on him. She and her had seen a lot together, the gun had originally belonged to a foreigner who had one day they had taken up residence in a cave Tiyaay frequented— when her parents weren't looking. The stranger was a Votaw— hiding in her country with hopes of discovering the buried and forgotten knowledge of Tiyaay's ancestors. Knowledge that was verboten, shunned, and feared by the current populace. Rather than scream or run as she had been taught, she instead spoke to the weary traveller, simply asking "Are ya hungry?" She had never seen someone from the stranger's country before, they were both coated in black feathers, after all, and the stranger wasn't too far off in appearance from the other Sotikaaput adults she was used to. The white stripes on their pinched face, red hair, and unbent legs were nothing if not funny to the girl. Certainly not cause for alarm. If this is what the evil Votaw looked like, surely, they could not be as the priests had taught her?
The stranger, however, saw her as a potential threat— having lost comrades to lynchings within the country, witnessing firsthand the hatred that was felt for foreigners in the Roywalaap church's nation. They would motion with their hand for the girl not to enter. From what she could see in the weak light that reached the back of the cave, they were injured— breathing heavily, and would likely not survive long without aid. Yet according to her faith— her elders must be listened to above all, and so she did not enter. Instead, she would leave food at the mouth of the cave, alongside medical supplies her parents would later go mad in search of. After a period of two weeks— the stranger would finally speak to her, between laboured breaths.
"I...I need...your help." This simple phrase brought a mix of excitement and anxiety into Tiyaay's mind. What would the stranger ask of her? Would they ask her to sin in some way, or try and attack her? Perhaps they'd ask to hear of her faith, so that they may die in the light? She took a few timid steps forward, and stopped several feet from the stranger's weary body.
"Please...I've been using...my spirit to move my...lungs. I can barely...breathe. My breathing...vest, needs...someone...must have...ool ." Breathing vests were typically seen elsewhere in the world, and utilized small ool engines to fill and empty a bladder at the front of a metal vest, forcing one to breathe. As the spirit-infused stone could only spin so much before shattering into pieces, one would need to replace it every now and again for continued use of the machine. However— they were long ago banned within Tiyaay's homeland, both the vests and ool itself. She had never even heard of a breathing vest, which was by now long forgotten by most. Ool, however, Tiyaay knew as sin incarnate. The source of the tragedy known by her people simply as The Incident— the first test of the world's largest ool engine, and a string of horrid circumstances that led to the deaths of thousands. Ever since, the stone, and machines powered by it, had been demonized.
When she heard that the stranger wished to find, and even hold, the object forbidden most by her faith— her eyes grew in fear. "No! No! No! Ya can't, them stones'll blow erythin' t' bits!" The stranger gave her a sullen look. "Child...there is nothing to...fear— they are nothing..." They stopped for a moment to catch their breath, before continuing. "— but stone and spirit. They...never could blow up— I...understand that that...may be what you believe, but...I have lived most of my...life beside them." The stranger wore a tired look upon their face, filled with sadness, anger, and exhaustion— one which would be etched onto Tiyaay's mind for the remainder of her life. Still, she would refuse, and would find the cave empty the next day. She would visit every day for a month, until she found them once again— breathing steadily with an audible puffing and shrinking sound as the vest's bladder filled and emptied itself. They were excitedly whispering to themselves as they frantically jotted down notes in a dizzying array of notebooks before them. She would run away in fear, seeing the spinning yellow light on the back of their vest— despite fearing the danger, she thought that she would be in great trouble with her parents should she tell them of the stranger, and so she avoided the cave and cried in fear for days. After a week, however, there had been no such explosion. Her curiosity would get the best of her, and she would return.
It was then that she began to learn of the Roywalaap church's lie, and the seed of doubt was planted. Slowly but surely she would come to understand these machines as the stranger— she never did learn their name— did, and grew to be just as excited about them. She began to carry out tasks for them, gathering what information she could on forgotten technology, potential locations of their remains— and even collecting them herself, on occasion.
In return, the stranger would teach the girl the ways of the Saawkamut, of how to find balance within oneself, of how to control their spirit and utilize it as magical power. She would need to defend herself, they told her. She could see the way the eyes of those around her boiled at the mention of technology, or of foreigners. She heard the venom in their voices when they spoke of them. A venom that was seen tenfold in the preachers she had grown up to trust— and whom she began to distrust more with each day. She saw the mobs, the murders, the hangings— how engineers, scientists, foreigners, and apostates were treated when found. Over time she began to see herself upon the gallows whenever she found her eyes closed— the noose tied round her own neck, the stool kicked from beneath her own feet. She saw that the stranger was right. She saw the need for strength, and threw herself into her training.
In time she would become a formidable spellslinger, and by the age of 17 she would rescind her faith entirely, after a great amount of inner struggle, questioning, fearing, thought, and tears. Tiyaay would never go back, she had seen and learned too much, the veil of lies was lifted, and her eyes had finally adjusted to the light. This was further solidified by the fate of the stranger, who's life would end as a direct consequence of Tiyaay's actions. She made a dire mistake on a return trip to the cave, carrying technology retrieved from beneath a local church. She had not bothered to look over her shoulder even once— given the proximity of the edifice to the cave itself. Not only this, but she had attended that very same church since she was a child— it was a very familiar place for her, and so too were the streets and trails around it. Unknown to her, however, was that the church was not empty when she had entered that day as she had anticipated— the priest had been recovering from a drunken bender the night before, and was collapsed beneath a pew.
Tiyaay needed to break a lock to access the basement, which she did utilizing spirit— creating a loud pop followed by the sound of useless metal falling upon the wooden floor. This had awakened the hungover priest, who stayed where he was in order to catch the intruder. He waited, silently, as Tiaay searched, and followed her shortly after she left the building— right to the cave. Before she could show the stranger her prize— the priest approached from behind, drawing his pistol faster than the stranger— who would fall shortly after, three bullets having torn through their skull in rapid succession. The priest kept his pistol trained on Tiyaay as he took a few steps closer. She did not move, paralyzed by fear, as she struggled to process the reality of what had just happened.
"Were ya under tha spell of some sorta horrid machin'? Have ya been led astray, child?" Tiyaay remained silent, staring at her mentor's body before her. The priest took another step forward, and pressed her again. "Child, if ya' can still be saved, ya mus' atone here and now— or I will be forced t' put ya' in th' dirt wit' th' heathen right there." Tiyaay stared at the revolver in the stranger's hand. Their cartographer— as she had heard the stranger refer to it several times before— she had even used it, herself, during her training. Its bronze build was coated with a bright yellow finish, akin to the color of ool. The two halves of a polished black stone firmly held onto its grip, maps of a place unknown to her were carved into their surfaces— she assumed them to be of the stranger's home, but could not be sure. Its barrel snaked into an s-shape which split into three muzzles at its end, lined up horizontally against one another, while a fourth muzzle extended from the center of the barrel and pointed at an upwards angle. From her experience this had somehow allowed the revolver to "lead the way"— by choosing a barrel from which to exit— whichever was best suited to the wielder's desire.
Tiyaay's body covered the gun from the priest's sight, she could hear them taking another step closer. She had to act. "Lead the way." She whispered, and dove for the gun. Within a brief moment, the priest had lowered his gun— taking Tiyaay's words to mean she wished to atone— while Tiyaay had wrestled the gun from her dead mentor's hand, and turned to face the priest. Before the barrel had even turned to face the man, Tiyaay pulled the trigger. Rather than send her spell through the wall beside her— it went through the leftmost barrel, and turned mid-air towards the danger. Before he was able to blink, a burning red light had left a smoking hole in the man's chest, singing his robes and feathers beneath them along the edges of the wound. A trail of bright red smoke snaked from behind his body, out of the cave, and into the desert beyond. Where this trail ended, Tiyaay would bury the stranger. By the next day she had left town— fearing it to be only a matter of time before she was found out. If she had missed one witness, she thought, there were likely more behind the priest.
And so she would wander from then on, continuing her mentor's work— and exposing the truth of the feared technology at every opportunity. Her cartographer leading the way as she did.

To read about Tiyaay's life following this, please see:

(Article will be written at a later date)