The Price of Breath

When your fathers were still arrogant and your grandfathers still swift of foot, the knave Nimpaal was a foolish boy whose breath stank of raumak. He took himself into the swamp, deeper than any of our lineage lands, beyond even where the hunters seek the hippo and the crane. There, Nimpaal came upon Brother Bones. With every breath, the fiend drew life from the land; his voice was as hail on hard ground. "Go from here, young fellow," said the fiend. "My breath may be gone but my life is my own."

But Nimpaal heeded not the warning, and stepped one pace closer. "Speak not of life and breath. This is our land, not governed by the merely dead."

"My voice shall be the ash upon your pyre. Begone, lest you bear the cost," said Brother Bones, rattling forward with a gasp and a whisper.

But again the knave heeded not the warning, and stepped one pace closer. "Your words are as nothing to me," he spat in disgust.

"Then thus is my curse: your words shall be your last."

Brother Bones struck the ground thrice with his staff, and drew a deep breath. The knave grew pale, as the air drew from his lungs.

The knave fell.

When his kinsmen found him, Nimpaal's body was left at the edge of his grandfather's lands as a warning, pebble-white, chest sunken. And though his family reclaimed his spirit unto his corpse, still his breath came back never. And so it is with all who cross Brother Bones - they become the children of whispers.

Every life has its value; every breath has its price.