Wind skimmed the quarry hollow like a careful hand, lifting ash and pine needles and laying them down again as if weighing which should stay. The three masked figures didn't breathe loudly, didn't shuffle, didn't do anything a person did when confronted at dusk with strangers and a staff. They stood as if the air around them agreed they belonged.
Their masks were lacquered wood, painted with wide smiles and narrow eyes. The smiles never moved, but the eyes did—glints behind the cutouts catching Arya and pinning him the way a hawk's shadow pins a field mouse. Pale fingers flexed at their sides, nails stained dark, as if they had been dipping them in soot or something worse.
Lhakpa's whisper barely left his teeth. "Ash-walkers use the dead for ink. They write on the living if you give them time."
"Then don't," Mira said, sliding one foot back, staff low.
The foremost mask cocked, friendly as a neighbor peering over a wall. "We aren't crows picking eyes," the voice behind it said—gentle, almost apologetic. "We keep gates from flooding. We keep the world from crowding itself with what it cannot hold."
"Yeshe," Arya murmured.
"Yes," the monk said, cane planted. "They call themselves custodians when they knock. They call themselves judges when they enter. They are neither."
The middle mask lifted one stained hand and placed it palm-out over its chest in a parody of courtesy. "Little bearer," it said, and Arya's mark prickled under his bandage, "we heard a hinge nod at Changu. That is a noise we collect. We brought you a trade." It swept its fingers toward the ridge. The second rope bridge creaked. Something long and low uncoiled from the dark—scales or hide or both, eyes banked like cooking embers. The shape flowed along the far bank and halted with its chin on a boulder, watching.
Mira kept her voice flat. "Is that one of yours?"
The mask chuckled, a sound like dry paper fussed by fingers. "Nothing is ours. We only arrange. But yes—we followed where it hunted. It eats oath-light. We thought it might teach your leash manners."
Arya's stomach tightened. He could feel the storm inside him lean toward the thing the way a dog leans toward a noise under the floor. Not hunger. Recognition. The vows he'd set at Changu tugged back—no storm for fear, no storm for pride, no storm that harms those at my side, no storm on a plea—and the pull steadied.
"We don't need your lessons," he said.
"Everyone needs lessons," the mask said gently. "Most learn by bleeding. We offer a cheaper curriculum."
"Yes," Yeshe said, "and the tuition is a name written where it cannot be erased."
The front mask dipped as if conceding a clever line. "Words should stick," it said. "That is why they matter." Its painted smile widened. "Here is our bargain: let us bind your leash for you—just at the edges, just so it doesn't snag on every nail—and we will call our eater away from your road."
Mira snorted. "And when we're sleeping? You send it back?"
"We are not petty," the mask said, almost offended. "We are persistent."
Lhakpa angled his trident, spearpoint down, as if pinning a map to earth. "For the record," he said, "you're not binding his leash."
The mask looked at him properly for the first time. "Soldier," it said. "You don't like the way your oaths taste now that you have chewed them." It tilted its head in polite interest. "Who taught you to lie to your captain so cleanly?"
"Pigeons," Mira said.
The mask didn't laugh. "We will take a little blood from the bearer's palm," it said, conversational as a tailor discussing hem length. "We will write a small line around his leash. He will sleep. His friends will not die because his left hand forgets what his right promised. No soldiers. No capital. No King." It spread its pale fingers. "We are reasonable."
"Yes," Yeshe said, "and you are wrong."
The thing on the far bank shifted. The rope bridge trembled as if a low sound had rolled under it. Arya stretched his hand down and drew a ring of light on the quarry floor, no wider than a cooking bowl. It held. The light wasn't a boast—thin, quiet, almost shy—but when the wind came it bent around the ring instead of crossing it.
The mask watched the ring with a craftsman's curiosity. "You will make nets for everything until your arms are too tired to lift," it said softly. "Why not let us make a seam that holds on its own?" It took a step forward. The smell of smoke deepened, not woodsmoke but the kind that clings to hair when you've stood too long near a pyre.
Mira slid between Arya and the masks, staff across her thighs like a bar. "No closer."
"We have good hands," the mask said. "Our names are clean. We would not smear them on you."
"You wear dead people's smiles on your faces," Mira said. "We're not impressed by clean." Her staff rose a finger-width. "Walk."
The second mask turned toward Yeshe. Its voice was lower, as if a different throat stood behind it. "Mother," it said with a thread of respect, "you remember when oaths had floors. You know how many fell through. Let us lay plank."
"Yes," Yeshe said. For a heartbeat weariness brushed her mouth. "And every plank you lay has your name on it and nobody else's. Favors with strings are snares. The boy will learn his leash without your ink."
The first mask sighed, regretful. "Then we must let our eater teach." It flicked its stained fingers toward the far bank. The long shape's head lifted; those ember eyes brightened. The bridge swayed again, rope whispering against rope, plank against plank.
Arya's ring of light flickered. The storm inside him rose—not wild, not bucking, but with the earnest push of a river after rain. He pictured nets and chains and the leash he'd set at Changu. He didn't want to scorch the quarry into a kiln or snap every bone the way fear wanted. He wanted a hold.
"Don't blast," Mira said without turning. "We're downwind and I like having eyebrows."
"I know," Arya said through his teeth.
The eater moved, slow and deliberate, dragging a belly as heavy as rumor over stone. When it reached the bridge's midpoint, it dipped its head and touched one rope. The fibers didn't burn; they dulled—color falling out of them as if light had been scrubbed away. The bridge didn't fall. It simply forgot it knew how to hold.
"Net," Arya breathed, but not across—not in front. He laced lines low along the ground between their hollow and the bridge, zigzagging, then drew a second set high, stitching into the first until the air between them hummed like a plucked string. He kept the light small, tight, tucked—the opposite of spectacle.
The eater slid from the last plank and poured toward the net. When it touched the lower lines they dimmed, shadows nibbling at the vows woven into them; when it reached the higher ones, the lines brightened, heat pearl-hard under its hide.
The mask clucked its tongue. "Pretty," it said. "Thin."
Lhakpa shifted three steps right, trident angling to herd—not stab. "Mira," he said, "if it pushes left—"
"I'll pretend I'm a wall," Mira said.
The eater pushed. Its head should have been a snake's, but the jaw hinged wrong, too wide, like a door that had forgotten its frame. When it bit the upper net, the lines sang in Arya's bones and held. When it slid its flank across the lower net, the light guttered.
"Lift the low," Yeshe said.
Arya raised the bottom lines with his hand as if hauling a rope from a well. The light climbed, crossing the eater's body the way water crosses a boulder's back. The creature shuddered, uncoiling a little, not in pain—surprise. It bit again at the bright, then shifted weight to press where the light was thinnest.
"They don't like rules," Mira said. "They like leaks."
"Patch," Yeshe said.
Arya patched. Every time the eater found a thin place, he named it not yet or not here and drew that meaning like thread through a needle until it tied. The mask watched with an almost teacherly patience, as if grading. The other two masks stood still as fence posts, hands quiet at their sides.
Wind spilled down the ridge, steadier now, the way it moved before a storm decided to come home. Arya's hand shook. Keeping the net taut but not breaking, bright but not flaring, felt like holding a dozen kettle lids while soup boiled beneath. His vows pulled tight and hummed: no fear, no pride, no harm to those at my side, no storm on a plea.
The eater leaned into the work. It pressed again, and the lower net went gray up to Arya's shin. The upper brightened to sharpness and cut a groove along the creature's hide. No blood. It didn't have the decency to bleed. Instead a smell like an old coin box pried open after years flooded the hollow.
"Enough," the mask said, almost bored now. "We see your stitch. You will tire before we do. Call this a lesson learned. We'll return when your fingers cramp."
"Don't," Mira said.
The mask tilted. "Pride is boring. We won't test it. We test structure. Yours creaks." It tapped two fingers against its painted smile. "When you sleep, little bearer, dream of simpler knots. We love simple knots."
Arya wanted to snap back, to hold the net until the eater choked, to show them something that didn't creak. His arms shook with wanting. The storm under his ribs pressed to run.
The leash tugged. No storm for pride.
He let the anger go like a breath he'd held too long. "Leave," he said.
"As requested," the mask said pleasantly, making the word a joke with its mouth. It flicked its stained fingers toward the ridge. The eater flowed backward the way tide retreats through a breakwater, and the bridge remembered color. The masks stepped away as if leaving a neighbor's yard, courteous to the end.
"Until next lesson," the front one said, and all three turned and walked into the trees.
They didn't break twigs when they went. They didn't crush needles. The forest believed in them enough to part and mend.
Only when the last painted grin had vanished did Arya drop the net. The light fell out of the air without fanfare—lines dimming, humming gone, leaving nothing but the cold and the small noises of pine.
Mira exhaled hard. "I hate them," she said. "I hate how tidy they are."
"Me too," Lhakpa said, rubbing his forearm where gooseflesh had risen. "For the record."
Yeshe stood long enough to measure the air that stayed behind. Only then did she lower her cane. "You didn't burn the hollow," she said to Arya. "You didn't let them put ink in your leash. That is two refusals in one evening. How exhausting."
He almost laughed, shakily. "You and your arithmetic."
"Yes," she said. "Arithmetic keeps boys alive."
They moved camp to a tighter nook under a shelf of rock. Mira set her bedroll where she could see the bridge if it twitched wrong. Lhakpa strung a thin cord with bells made of wire and pebbles, the sort that would wake a sleeper without waking a valley. Arya sat with his back to the boulder and tried to feel the storm the way he had at Changu.
It felt different now—not smaller, not bigger, just…better arranged. Like a room whose furniture someone had finally put where it belonged. His palm throbbed along the three cuts he had laid over his vows, but the ache had a purpose. He closed his eyes and fell asleep to the sound of pebbles barely touching wire.
He woke to a whisper he knew wasn't wind.
Little bearer.
His eyes snapped open. The hollow was dark, the bells still. Mira snored very softly the way stubborn people do when they finally let go. Yeshe's breathing was a tide. Lhakpa lay on his side with one hand on his trident.
No one else moved.
"Where?" Arya whispered.
Not here, the whisper said pleasantly—too pleasantly. Not now. Far. But doors like to speak after they are admired. You said 'no' earlier. Consider this our formal complaint.
The hair on Arya's arms lifted. "Who are you?"
Silence. Then a second voice, cooler, older—the river-rock tone from the hinge itself. Little bearer. Bring your hand back whole.
The first voice laughed softly, as if amused a grandparent had stepped onto a porch. We'll see, it said, and went away.
Arya lay still until the gooseflesh went down. When he finally slept, he dreamed of nets that did not creak and bells that rang without ropes, and a mountain that counted refusals the way it counted rain.