As we had originally planned, each tribe kept a small group of people at the encampment near the River Teg. I also gave everyone some magic and language homework, and told everyone to be back at Bek Tepe for the solstice festival. I also gave them some advice for what to do if they met a crazy person who made the world around him dance, any monsters with red stars on their foreheads, talking birds, or Noel. Although, I mentioned to the elders that if they saw the world begin to dance or if the moon filled up the sky or something, the best they could hope for was a quick death.

“And if there are any poems or stories that mention the word annihilation,” I told the elders of each tribe, “you need to make sure to write them all down on pieces of monster hide or stone slabs, and give them to me at Bek Tepe.”

And so, as the summer began, the various tribesmen left the encampment and returned to their native lands. I followed the Oko and Imm tribes up North, past the River Teg and into the lands that used to be covered in snow and frost.

It felt a little lonely, being back in a small group like this. Not having Kelser by my side, constantly nagging away and calling me by my first name, felt very strange. I tried to get some of the younger kids to stop calling me Teacher, but I found out that their parents had told them they’d be scolded if they ever disrespected me. Great.

Still, this wouldn’t be for long. I’d be back with the others once the solstice began, and I was looking forward to making the encampment more permanent next time around. And I had a lot to do for now too. I’d brought the large map I had made of the surroundings of the encampment, which was filled up in every direction except the far North. I’d also brought the lodestone compass, which we were already using to mark the path to the Imm tribe’s lands from the encampment.

The Imm tribe lived near the lowlands next to the River Teg, so the journey was short and uneventful. The air was still warm and fresh, with the smell of late blooming flowers and swathes of airborne pollen. Some of the earliest fruit-bearing plants had already lost their flowers, and I made sure to mark out the best fruit-bearing plants on a rough, working map I was working on for the foraging parties. I also made some notes of promising hunting grounds for the hunting parties, although the Imm tribesmen said they already knew about all of these places.

Still, it wouldn’t hurt having this stuff written down. Especially if the encampment ended up needing more supplies later on. I also used landmarks to help illustrate some of my maps, especially if I was marking some of the storage holes and resting places the Imm and Oko used while out hunting and foraging for the encampment during the winter.

When we arrived at the Imm tribe’s land, they held a great feast in celebration. They tried to say the feast was in my honor, but I told them I’d rather celebrate the hard work that their people had done over the past year.

The feast was amazing. The food was hearty and filling, and now that herbs were available again, I didn’t have to force down bland pieces of meat. The alcoholic drink we’d used to create vinegar had proven very popular throughout the tribes, and we’d had a lot of it at this feast. Some of the best magicians even showed off their magic, and once everyone was sufficiently buzzed, they started asking me to show off some spells too.

I resisted for a little bit, but the alcohol and the dancing and the singing and the festive mood all came together to plaster a giant smile on my face and a burning happiness in my chest. I stood up, with great flair and pomp, struck a pose with one hand pointing at the sky, cast my eyes over the sea of happy humans, and launched a massive burst of fire high into the sky.

The tribesmen cheered. The heat from the flames was so great, they felt it even at the edge of the camp. I followed the great fire by stomping on the ground and taking a steady pose. Earth rose up underneath me, raising me high above the humans’ head.

After basking in the crowd’s amazement, I launched jets of water across the sky, creating a light mist over the festivities. Before the food could get too soggy, though, I cut off the water and used some light magic to manipulate the already bright moonlight and push it through the mist.

A beautiful rainbow appeared overhead. Its colors reflected in the eyes of the buzzed tribesmen. The children, who had been expressly forbidden alcohol by me, were the most mesmerized, letting out long extended sounds of awe, followed by a cheer that was picked up by the adults and presented the perfect opportunity for me to jump off with balance magic and slowly glide to the ground with a great burst of wind.

I passed right through the rainbow, smiling as the mist kissed my face and I landed gently into the crowd.

---

I left the Imm tribesmen behind and continued further North with the Oko. Elder Konri Oko gave me some warm fur clothes as well as some advice on how to navigate the colder regions we would be passing through, but as a lifelong New Yorker, I felt like I could handle a little snow.

The Oko spent most of the year in a valley between a small mountain range and a much larger one that extended out from the roof of the world in the East. To get to their warmer, more abundant lands, we first had to cross the sparse and dangerous mountain terrain that lay just north of the Imm tribe’s lands.

We followed a tributary of the River Teg for a little while. The Oko were used to this route because they did not used to have the luxury of water magic, and had to be wary of their water supplies. The mountainous terrain did not have a lot of water, so the Oko liked to fill up near the plains before moving up.

But as I used my compass to chart the route, it became clear that this ancestral route was unnecessarily long and actual wound back up on itself a few times. Once I’d mapped it out the first time, we could cut the return journey down by a lot.

As the silhouette of the mountains appeared over the horizon, I noted that they were not as tall as the so-called roof of the world, or even as tall as the mountains that had surrounded the Plains of Serenity. Crossing them with a tribe full of elderly and children might be a challenge, but most of the able-bodied adults in the Oko tribe shouldn’t have any trouble.

And now that everybody knew magic, the trek through the mountains had become even easier. Elder Konri told me she’d pressed her tribesmen to learn balance magic at any cost, precisely because it would help with the journey. It also ended up making foraging and hunting a lot easier, so we never had to worry for food up in the mountains.

We arrived at the wide, fertile valley at noon on a bright, sunny day. The air in the mountains had a certain chill, even though summer had already begun, but the valley was much more pleasant and temperate. I doubted it would get very hot here, even during the solstice, but understood why the Oko made the difficult journey south since this place was probably very dangerous in the winter.

The Oko took me to their favorite cave system, which was an impressive, meandering, and honestly slightly terrifying series of caves that seemed to stretch right on through the mountains to the North. I wondered if there might be a way to the other side of the mountains through these caves, but the Oko said that it was unlikely. Their ancestors had explored deep into the caves, with elder Konri suggesting there were markings at several days journeys inside.

I stepped out of the caves while the Oko prepared for the night. I took in the scale of the mountains in front of me, which seemed no less than that of the roof of the world mountain range. I stared at the icy peaks, stretching up at a daunting size. I imagined the mountain in front of me like a giant, staring at me down his navel, preparing to stomp me into the ground like an insect.

I took a deep breath and strengthened my resolve. I would leave for the mountains tomorrow. But for today, I walked back into the caves and joined the bustling tribesmen for another feast.