VII
All Distances
by Degree are Dying

Atnan stood beside Verity’s altar next to Barlas while Dub stood on the opposite side. The elders arrayed themselves halfway around the inner circle facing the litigants while everyone else spread around the outer circle.

Layram recounted the events of the evening, then pointed his oar at Dub. “Ghoti-Dubarka, by all Five! What are we doing here?”

Dub launched into a ramble about his many recent misfortunes and their source: That dumb-stump, Atnan. “He’s been in here — eh? — in here, sun up, sun down — skulking around, concocting — that desk of his is some kind of altar — conjuring up holes — fouled my nets, broke my — Barlas, now — ”     

Atnan tensed. How much did Dub know? He hadn’t watched the roundhouse every moment. That time he caught Dub going through his things might not have been the first.

Dub took off his hat, kneading it in his hands. “Poor Geminda! Got the fire in the bones! She’ll be — boiled inside-out by morning. Oh!” Furious, he pointed at Atnan. “All the doing of that, that  … wizard!”

“I’m what now?”

The voice came from behind where Geminda stood in the doorway, wrapped in a thick blanket.

Atnan thought she looked pale and run down, but very much alive.

“Geminda!” Dub ran to her side. “I was sure you were boiled alive!”

She snatched his hat and croaked, “Not boiled, but wondering why my husband has run all over, barking like a seal.”

Overlapping debate erupted in the hall once more, while Atnan studied each angry or confused face. If the village was a rock, cracks were forming right in front of him.

In the commotion Dub moved toward Atnan’s work niche to launch an impromptu investigation, uncovering baskets, opening boxes. “Ever since them, them … clay bottles … brought up in here … desecration — ”

Triumphantly, Dub upturned a basket onto the floor, displaying Atnan’s texts and copies for all to see. “There, you see! You can’t bring cursed things into sacred spaces — everything falls apart.”

All eyes turned to Atnan, hushed. A line of Fyrean wisdom entered his mind: A beam of sun burns away the fog. The moment he had dreaded for months was finally upon him, sudden, terrible, but oddly enough, a relief.

He signed while his father interpreted: “Dub is correct. I took one vessel off the fire.”

Dub shouted over the murmuring crowd, “There, you see! He admits it!”

Layram demanded silence while Atnan continued to sign.

“Dub is also incorrect. The documents are … imperial records?” In a pained voice, Omrik added, “Is all this true, son?”

Which part should I answer? The tiny island of what I can prove, or the continent of mysteries just over the horizon? The honest answer is, “I don’t know.” I’ve staked out more territory than my island covers — that’s Dub’s problem as well — what matters to us both is what lies beyond the circle of view.

Omrik translated, “Lists and inventories. Neither good nor evil but property by law.” Omrik added, “He means that by the treaty of Kindhirak these artifacts are the property of the Heptarchy, and I should add, must be deposited in the Grand Archive at Nepsilam.”

Red-faced, Dub stomped forward, pointed. “Burn their law! I say — ”

Geminda tugged at his sleeve. “Husband, please!”

Dub poked his finger toward Barlas. “He’s got no oar to bust. Maybe me and my boys should bust one of his limbs instead?”

“Revenge is also against the law,” Omrik said.

“How about breaking a man’s oar?”

“How about poking someone with it?” Barlas said.

Layram interjected angrily, “Count your own limbs, Ghoti-Dubarka, and thank the Five that Barlas restrained himself!”

“So that’s it then? This is the sort of village where you can terrorize your neighbors and destroy their property without consequence? There’s real issues here. Tide won’t just carry all that away on its own.”

Layram pointed to Atnan. “Is this all you have to say?”

Omrik interpreted Atnan’s signs, “Dub says: Tide won’t carry it away. But I can, with Barlas as a guide.”

Layram considered a moment. “Does that satisfy you, Ghoti-Dubarka?”

“Bah! Damage done is still done — and Barlas still owes me a busted oar!” He put on his hat and stomped out with Geminda close behind.

As the elders conferred, Barlas whispered to Atnan, “He ain’t satisfied, but at least he’s gone! Sounds like you got a plan — you sure about it?”

Atnan exhaled sharply and signed in the negative. There was nothing to do but wait on the elders to complete their conference.

Finally, Layram clacked his oar on the stones. “Eya-Atnan will take these artifacts to the authorities in Gwetlak, and Barlas with him. We will sort out Dub’s claims in the meantime. Furthermore, Eya-Atnan will remain aloof for the rest of the year, which will cleanse any misfortune that clings to him.” Layram held out an open hand. “Your oar, Eya-Atnan. Your citizenship remains here even if you do not. You may petition to rejoin the circle of the Village at the next Dark Day.”

Atnan surrendered his oar. His grandmother shouted something he couldn’t hear.

“That is not all.” Layram’s oar weighed heavily on Atnan’s shoulder. “Here, in this very spot, you recited the oaths to Verity, Mystery, and all the rest. Yet here we are again, not half the year gone, and we find that you have not only profaned the roundhouse but lied about it continually. Therefore, you will be marked — ”

Hennamis shouted, “No, you can’t — ”

He clacked his oar. “Therefore, you will be marked as an oath-breaker.”

Two men grabbed Atnan by his shoulders, respectfully but with a firm grip. The rest of the village filtered outside, leaving only Atnan and the elders, their faces grim.

Layram laid a stone knife in Verity’s altar to heat.

Atnan did not struggle or complain, but silently cursed himself for every decision that brought him to this point, including the confession he had just made. He wiggled his fingers to indicate to his captors that he needed his arms so he could sign.

Atnan signed for his father to do the cutting, not Layram. If a rune must be carved into him, it should at least be done by a skilled hand. A steady hand.

Omrik turned away. “No, please, son. I can’t. I had no part in this decision! I want no part in it.”

Teeth clenched, Atnan placed his left hand beside the altar.

No more dithering, father. Now put it in the wood where it can’t rub out.     

Taláni awoke with a dry mouth and a headache that felt like he had been trampled.

“The skin grows tight in the presence of a death spirit,” his mother said, louder than he would have liked.

“More than — ” He started, coughed, swallowed.

She handed him a bowl of cold broth.

After drinking, he started again, “No petty spirit, but a wekáre-wekakáreya, a ruler of rulers.” He told her the rest of his vision as best he could.

At the end of the story, she grunted thoughtfully. “Wolkári is more powerful than I thought.” She brought out a large shallow bowl of bone dust. “And a bigger fool. You may not have subdued the spirit fully but it is your ally, for now. We will match Wolkári’s art with our own. Do you remember the old writing?”

Taláni extended his scarred palm. “I know the signs you taught me.”

“Not the blood signs, the letters. I tried to teach you once, but your father — ” She waved her hand as though sweeping something away. “Come to the writing bowl.”

“Why learn now? I will have scribes if I need them.”

“Scribes? Ha! They say they are correcting, but I call it what it is: corrupting. The charge against Wolkári must be written in the old way: Your blood as ink, Wolkári’s knife as a pen, the assassin’s skin as parchment. Wolkári will understand.”

Taláni poked a tentative finger into a bowl of bone-dust she sat before him. “What do I do?”

“Your bones remember.”

He plowed a shaky furrow to form the backbone of his word then added the limbs. Soon his word resembled a lizard skeleton, but crushed. “There. Is that anything?”

After performing some deft surgery on the word she asked, “Do you remember the name I gave you when you were born? Ilaxáyo.” My future.

He did remember. “Show me the words and I will write them.”

Together they made the accusation. The actual writing took less effort and time than Taláni had feared it might. Afterward, they discussed the details of their plans late into the night, continuing in excited conversation all the way back to the encampment.

The spirits were on their side. Wolkári’s domain would soon fall under their banner and Kalparaana, the world-heart, where all the meridians converged, would be restored. Then, the children of Kindhir would be purged from Kwelitánsit. They were now a boulder rolling downhill, unstoppable.

Selolo spotted a fallen tree across a narrow neck of the river gorge. After some deliberation, the group agreed to cross even though nobody quite knew where they should go next.

Kilími ended the otherwise unfruitful debate by hopping onto the log and declaring, “Wherever we go from here, we and the land will be strangers. The surest way to make friends is to introduce yourself.”

Crossing the tree with heavy packs and unsure footing was a terrifying ordeal, but once they were all over the river, the little troupe’s spirits rose.

That evening, Sílthi said she considered them her “sisters,” and planned to always refer to them that way. Táripel hugged her, rocking back and forth.

“But who would our parents be?” Saragánthi teased. When nobody answered, she added, “Look at us.”

“It’s true,” Shúri said. “In this forest, no two trees are alike!”

“Saragánthi would be a spruce!”

“Gwahália would be a cedar, and — ”

Kilími said, “We’re a family if we choose to be.”

Selolo agreed.

Lepríthi giggled. “Kilími would be a mulberry: pretty enough, but so so sour!”

Melinítri said, “No, no — a bitter orange!”

Even Kilími laughed at that.

Selolo thought she must be like grass, blowing in the wind, everywhere and nowhere at once.

From that point forward, they claimed to be related everywhere they went. This elicited more than a few sideways glances and the occasional cocked eyebrow, but no one seriously challenged them.

Around this time, Selolo first suspected she might be pregnant. Her knowledge of such things was rudimental: Each month, her body set aside some blood to make the innards of a person. Given a dose of semen, her womb would fashion skin, hair, and bones. Otherwise, the blood would leave her body.

Two full moons had passed since her last cycle. At first, she thought it might be the stress of the journey — she had skipped before — but the dreams of Taláni’s child growing inside her kept returning. Sometimes these dreams were pleasant but other times, the baby was a miniature version of its father trapped inside her, slashing its way out with a knife.

She had no intention of revealing any of this to her sisters until she had no choice. She might be wrong or even so the issue might resolve itself. Somehow.

The days grew longer and so did Selolo’s hair. It was now long enough to braid again, which was a great comfort since the land beyond the river was open and arid, which meant her wild, sweaty locks had become a burden.

Each leg of their journey revolved around water supplies: streams, springs, unattended wells. Fortunately, the people they encountered were generous and hospitable for the most part. “Hapak-na,” they called themselves, which turned out to mean hill-people — hunters, trappers, weavers. They lived in sod-roofed huts and wore tall pointed hats.

The sisters hesitated to tell anyone where they were from but learned to call themselves “Lapapjak-na,” forest-people. Leper’s marks were unknown on this side of the river so they stopped marking themselves.

The local language was obscure, unpronounceable, as though Hapak mouth-parts were always at war, colliding violently into each other. No variety of the Silgath language was spoken on this side of the river but most Hapak spoke some trade jargon, which the sisters had learned at the insistence of Taláni’s trade advisors.

Selolo was the most fluent and volunteered to speak for the group. It was no burden. She wasn’t the smartest of the sisters — Melinítri was — but she may have been the most flexible. To her, any manner of speech was simply a new set of clothes for the same ideas, another mask to wear, some familiar, some obscure. As the only Lolo in Taláni’s camp, she had learned to suppress her accent, though exhaustion or high emotion might make her round her vowels or drop endings — just different enough to stick out. Here, no one’s first language was jargon, so everyone had an accent, which meant no one did.

Talkative and opinionated, the hill-folk were happy to share stories as well as meals. Many raised goats and would trade milk or spun cloth for beads the sisters picked off the last scraps of their Silgath clothing.

The sisters encountered no large settlements, only isolated clusters of farms and hunting camps. The Hapak-na were unwilling to take on dowerless strangers, but several sisters decided to sell themselves into servitude rather than press on not knowing the destination.

If Lolo is not my home, then where? Not this dusty place. I am a leaf on the wind, always moving, never arriving.

She had escaped dark forests, brooding mountains, rushing rivers, hills and valleys, roots and rocks. She had escaped town after burned-out town and all their unfriendly residents. She had escaped the mad warlord and his witch-mother, and all their soldiers and shamans. The one thing she couldn’t escape was herself.

One evening, a shadow passed overhead. Thinking nothing of it, Selolo went back to splitting a rock coney to roast over the fire. Later, it happened again, and she thought an eagle had alighted in a nearby tree.

Slipping away from the others, she emptied one of their heavy leather traveling sacks, wrapped it around her outstretched arm, and whistled through her teeth.

What a ridiculous person you are! This is not your eagle. It never was — not here, not in Lolo.

Regardless, she had to try. After her first few disappointing attempts, she returned to the fire to sneak an uncooked rabbit haunch.

“Everything alright?” Sílthi asked.

“Only some  … latrine issues.”

“Oh, I know.” Sílthi frowned. “So much meat.”

Selolo made an urgent expression.

“Oh! Yes, go, go, go.”

Perched on a hillock where she hoped to be more visible, she waggled the meat and whistled again. A gray shadow emerged from the mist, a pine eagle. It floated toward her, landed smoothly on her arm, footed around some, yanked the meat from her grip, and flew off.

The encounter lasted only a few seconds, but the eagle’s mannerisms struck her as familiar, as they had in Lolo. Memory, or wishful thinking? Either way, the eagle had followed her. Surely that meant something.

After repacking the bag, she returned to the fire.

“All better?” Sílthi asked.

She couldn’t help but smile. “All better!”

That evening, she told the other sisters about the baby, which they already suspected. They had noticed she was growing fat around the middle, and not from all the meat.

That night and many afterward, she was troubled by portentous dreams. As they traveled the dreams came quicker, with fewer nights of respite between. Somehow, she suspected they were his dreams, or perhaps they came from the child within her.

The visions show me he is still working on his cause, progressing through the stages. How can this be? I don’t know, but it is.

In one dream, I see a circle in the dust. One by one, animals battle each other: a stag, a ram, a wolf, a bear, a fox. The animals disappear and an oak tree stands in the center of the ring. A thorny vine bursts up from the ground and strangles it. The tree rots away as the vine hardens into a hollow woody shell. Woodsmen chop it with axes, but the vine reaches out, impales them, and drags them inside itself. The hollow is filled with pierced bodies for the vine to feast upon as it grows toward the stars.

I know the vine is Taláni, but I don’t know what it means.

This one comes again and again: I am in a sunny meadow. Several young women are also there, picking flowers — always blue delphiniums — and weaving them into crowns. Some are infants, some are small children, some are as old as nine or ten. The older ones are holding the babies and cooing. They are all me, but at different ages.

Suddenly, the meadow darkens, and I hear screeching from the sky. I try to warn the girls, but my voice makes no sound. I start running toward them, but I can’t move. Sometimes I wake up.

Other times, I see more: The screeching becomes a loud rumbling like thunder. I see the sun falling from the sky like a mountain of fire. It strikes and alights the meadow. We all melt like lumps of silver in a furnace, then flow together into a giant silver heron flying over a circle of fire and ash.

Sometimes I see him there, in the center of the ring, eating cinders and growing larger with each bite until he is a giant silver idol that stomps away toward the sea. I swoop on him, but cannot stop him.

They tell me that Sílthi has died in the night and we must bury her under a pile of rocks, or else wild animals will scatter her bones. This time it isn’t a dream.

Mekvat rode to Shiriwak in a litter trailed by forty scholars while Luto walked beside him. The contractor’s chattering was a welcome, if annoying, diversion.

On the tenth day, they approached the city. Admirers lined the roads, cheering, waving shocks of blue snapdragons, playing hymns of praise on drums and little clay flutes.

“Quite the reception,” Luto said.

“It is a rare event for the Sage Prime to travel so far from Kindhir’s Tower. It hasn’t happened for Shiriwak in my lifetime.”

“The local deity of Shiriwak is Etreya, yes?”

“Indeed, the Sea-Mother is popular  … near the sea.”

“I suppose so!”

“You are from Kusumnu, isn’t that right? Radu, eldest god for the eldest city?”

“Yes, minister — and the best, if you’ll forgive my partiality.”

“I would expect no less.”

“The other spirits are useful at times, of course, but my devotion belongs to Radu. I wonder what it’s like to follow a younger spirit. Is it not somehow — ”

“Less?”

“Meaning no offense, minister.”

“Not at all! Observe the decrees: First, ‘The taciturnity of the gods’ means the other-worlds have left us to speak of them as we like. Second, ‘above all, unity’ means we no longer kill one another over such things. But the third is most relevant to this discussion: Mek may be the youngest of the spirits, but he is also the most extensive because an ‘Academy of Mek’ is ‘established in every city.’ Radu is beloved of Kusumnu, and Etreya the coast, but Kindhir brought the light of Mek to all the cities. He is first in the hearts of Nepsilam, but second everywhere else, that the ‘illumination of their counsel’ may shine ‘to the benefit of all.’ Not less, no, not less at all.”

They arrived in the city and paid obeisance before the heptarch, Limiya. Mekvat presented her with two teams of oxen, and she gave the Academy three jars of perfumers’ oil harvested from the whales that passed by that part of the coast.

They spent little time in conversation; Mekvat was anxious to see the worksite. The entire entourage boarded her barge, propelled by teams of slaves that pushed the craft over the sandy bottom with long poles.

“You see, Minister? Shallow,” Luto said.

“The island is more white than blue.”

“Look there, where the algae infects the caves along the shore. Perhaps your scholars may coax it to bloom all the more … ah … vividly?”

Mekvat grunted. Aquaculture was quite beyond his circle of interest.

On the island, Mekvat arranged the attendants for the ceremony: some from his entourage, some from the local Academy. Devotees of Etreya accompanied Limiya, their long robes and hair billowing in the breeze as though underwater.

Mekvat occupied a flat boulder at the pinnacle of the island, which Luto had marked off as the eventual site for a statue of Mek. A ring of five dancers encircled him; then around them, lower ranks of eight, thirteen, and twenty-one. All forty-seven dancers wore plain white robes, but one dancer in each ring wore blue epaulets. Mekvat faced the rising sun with the line of blue-shouldered participants facing him.

Earlier, Mekvat had explained the numerology to Luto. “I say a word and the ring of five hops right. Once they make one full revolution, they shout the name of Mek, and the ring of eight hops one step to the left. When the eight rotate all the way around, both inner rings shout — that’s every forty words because five by eight is forty.”

“Indeed it is.”

“At that point, the thirteen move one step right. Once they make it all the way around — ”

Luto counted on his fingers. “Forty by thirteen is five hundred twenty.”

“That’s right. The outer ring goes around just once — and I’ll spare you counting up, the number is 10,920, five by eight by thirteen by twenty-one. In the process, the name of Mek is shouted 2,184 times.”

“Why these counts and not some other?”

“To match the configuration of the text: Twenty-one strophes of ten stanzas each. Each stanza is eight lines long and each line is five words, the first being the name of Mek.”

“Ah, I see. And why is that the configuration of the text?”

Mekvat smiled knowingly. “To match the ceremony, of course.”

As Mekvat read out the consecration text, the dancers moved exactly as he had described:

Mek! A flood of wisdom.

Mek! Who blesses this place.

Mek! Who will dwell here.

Mek! Whose people we are.

Mek! Who is the spirit of this age.

Mek! Who lives in wisdom.

Mek! Whose blessing resides here.

Mek! Whose wisdom rains down.

It took all morning for the outer ring to make its full revolution, re-aligning the blue-shouldered attendants in front of him. At last, everyone gave out a long musical, Mek! and the blue-shouldered attendants advanced one step forward, the closest one joining Mekvat on the boulder. A chant was intoned establishing that candidate’s ascendancy to the rank of Sage Minor.

Afterward, Mekvat asked Luto what he thought about the ceremony as they ate a meal sitting on the grass of the island.

“I am impressed by the stamina of the dancers,” he said.

“No, no, Luto. I am interested to hear your real thoughts.”

Mekvat observed the man fidgeting as he considered his remarks.

“So,” Luto began. “I take it to be some kind of mechanism?”

“Indeed, for counting.”

“Right, but what is the purpose? Machines are not built without purpose. I tell you, for every machine, every structure, every process, some purpose is implied. Here, I see that the blue-shoulders get to advance, but they — they are not chosen by the mechanics of the steps, nor as far as I can tell are they transformed in any way.” He waved his arms around. “All this changes the predetermined outcome not one bit.” He bit off a hunk of bread and chewed it sloppily. “If you were to ask what I truly think, I might say it’s — why, it’s a rather convoluted way to dispose of a morning.”

“I did ask.” Mekvat tore off a small piece of bread and examined it before placing it in his mouth. “I received the answer I expected. I won’t waste any more of your time in explanations, except to say that if every machine implies a purpose, so every destination implies a journey.”

Luto flushed. “Ah, well and good, well and good. I mean no offense, minister. Whatever pleases you — ah, whatever pleases you indeed! I’m quite content with the situation and — I should have said — honored to observe!” Luto stood and brushed the crumbs off the front of his tunic. “Well! I reckon with this bit done, the real work can begin.”

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