What do you see instead of threads?
“More like bubbles. They float out from the people I read.”
So is it different for each Reader then?
Avis nodded. “Now, Quauhtil.”
I attempted to trace out a thread, but I didn’t know where to find him. I knew what his house looked like, but I didn’t know where in Firethorne it was or where he was within his house. Several minutes later, I still listened to the sounds of my mouth chewing my dinner.
The next day was much like the one before, as were the rest that spring. I continued to speak Nakben with Quauhtil during the day and try to trace his thread at night. Avis took over hunting even though I expressed how much I wanted to have my time in the forest. I didn’t have to tell him how the hawk that circled overhead teased me–or how I wanted to slide my arrow right into it.
Quauhtil’s memories of his childhood in Uxmal were traumatic and foreign to me. He had killed another boy his age after the start of his seventh summer, beating him with a rock to the head until his eyes went dead. His parents had been supremely proud and awarded him a thin tattoo that wrapped around his left arm as a symbol of his kill. Like the black stripes at Myxini, the tattoos were a public sign of accomplishment, though a bit more painful.
He showed me lines inked around his arms and told me what they meant. Each one was fairly simple on its own, but all together they looked intricate and complex. The square repeating patterns indicated a kill against another man in an organized fight. The triangle pattern with dots in the middle was for killing in battle, and he had at least five of those. There were others he didn’t have, a sun pattern for killing the queen, or a dog for killing a priest. I found it difficult to understand a culture that honored killing so much, a stark contrast to life in Madurai.
When he learned his eyes were going, he made the decision to leave for Madurai; on the islands, he would surely be killed for his weakness. It had been hard for him to leave his children, but his wife had died before him and he preferred to live.
We talked at length about the islands, how the four major islands differed from each other. The largest island was farthest north and had the capital city Uxmal in the center, surrounded by a thick jungle and accessed only by a narrow river.
A nearby island, named Teocuitlatl Oztotl or
Silver Spring
, for the striking water source in the center, was the smallest of the four and was more of a hunting ground than population center.
The third island was farther south and held the large city Tlaloc that was made entirely of aged copper. His memory of the aqua patina on the metal was a stunning sight I hoped to one day see in person.
The island closest to Madurai held the largest city, Chimalma, where religious figures performed sacrifices to the dog god, Chichiton.
“The priests in Chimalma are brutal. They choose young men and women for sacrifice. The more beautiful the woman or the stronger the man, the more pleased the dog will be,” he told me in Nakben one afternoon. His memories associated with the city were filled with fear as he tried to quickly move to Madurai without being detected. H his looming blindness would make him a target.
Another day he described Huitzilin, who had been queen until she died the year before. She had been a powerful ruler and was well loved by her people. She found a way to limit sacrifices without angering the dog, so the young men of Chimalma could be put to work mining ore or farming. The women could have more children and the strength of the Nakben Tribes could grow. It had been very sad for the tribes when she died, and there was fierce competition over who would replace her.
Yaotl was one of the priests from Chimalma that organized the sacrifices and selected the offerings from amongst the crowd. She wanted to increase the offerings to the god as repayment for the years of limited sacrifices under Huitzilin. The competitor, and eventual victor, was Xiuhpilli, Huitzilin’s beautiful daughter who shared her views on limiting sacrifices. The competition had been so fierce between the two candidates that Yaotl had even suggested sacrificing Xiuhpilli instead of electing her. In the end Xiuhpilli had won, more due to her bloodline than anything else, Quauhtil suspected.
“All Nakben rulers are women, teacher.” I told him uncertainly in Nakben, and he nodded. It was strange to think of women in power of such a strong nation. Takla Maya, Madurai, and Hurgada had always had men as their rulers.
To learn the Nakben language wasn’t half as interesting as learning about their culture. Men could take any unmarried woman they pleased, but they weren’t considered married until a child was born. Married men could never take another woman, but men were free to engage with other men and the same for women. Children were encouraged to begin killing the weak as soon as they were able.
Nakbens were barbaric and conflicted in a way that puzzled me, and I was almost excited that I would get to experience it for myself one day. They were a culture that valued the strong, and hunting was an honorable skill. It seemed like a place I could be successful, though I would have to be careful not to be
too
successful.
Despite my progress with the language, I had no such luck at drawing threads from a distance. I had been careful to learn exactly where Quauhtil’s house was within the beautiful coastal city, but I still struggled to draw his thread over the several miles between us.
At least I’m learning the language quickly.
I tried to remind myself of that when Avis pressed me to do better.
As the heat of summer began to spread across the warm sand and permeate the humid forests, Avis gave up. “No more Quauhtil. Read whoever you want.”
“But I don’t know anyone else here.”
“You’re trying to read at a
distance
. Pick someone else.”
“Who?”
“Someone whose thoughts you’d recognize.”
There was only one person who might work, as Avis had probably known. I tried to draw a thread from our small stone house in the Andover to my best friend in the Creekmont. There was no way of knowing where he was precisely, but all I could do was listen for the thoughts I knew as well as my own. Within minutes, I could hear Micha as he planned a late night visit to Iseut’s room, and I had to laugh.
It was good to have him with me again, even if he didn’t know it. I had missed him, missed the fun we had, missed having someone I could be myself around.
I guess Avis counts
. I could hardly have a secret from him, but it wasn’t the same; Micha and I had the bear.
I left the thread connected until Micha arrived at Iseut’s room and the time had come to cut it. His pulse jumped with nerves that told me he truly loved her. I wondered if I would have someone if I hadn’t been camping with Avis instead of being at school. Would I feel that way about Parvani if I hadn’t been separated from her for the last two seasons?
As I lay in bed, waiting for sleep, I traced a thread to the only other person I missed hearing in my head as much as Micha. My father was lying in bed, hungry and hoping he would get to eat tomorrow.
“Lark–”
“I don’t understand.”
Why is he hungry?
My father was a capable hunter. There was no reason for it. I knew deep down in my bones that something was wrong.
“Go to sleep. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
I cleared my head by thinking of Khea until I heard Avis drift to sleep, his breathing becoming easy and slow. I pulled on my shirt and packed my bag silently before I slipped out the open window and quickly saddled Obsidian. Ten minutes later, I raced down the Greenwood Road headed for Lagodon and the father I suddenly hated myself for leaving behind.
Father
By evening the next day, I knew I had to let Obsidian rest; I wouldn’t last much longer without sleep myself. It would take at least a month to travel the Greenwood down to the Creekmont south of Hubli and take the trails west to Lagodon on the coast, and I couldn’t afford the time to do it on foot. Taking the main road wasn’t the smartest thing I ever did, but I didn’t have much of a choice. I hoped keeping my head down and moving quickly would get me home without being noticed.
I kept on the move as much as possible, stopping only to rest or feed Obsidian and clean my kill for the day. It felt wrong every time I stopped to eat, but it wouldn’t do to get home and be weak with hunger. I never stayed in any of the inns on the road, too worried about who I would meet or who might be looking for me.
Each time I drew Father’s thread made me more frantic to get home. He constantly thought about nets and patching them before their owners came back for them. He never thought about my mother, which made me worry the most. I couldn’t make sense of any of it.
Why wasn’t he hunting? Where was my mother? What had happened to them since I left?
The Greenwood Road south of Hubli was busier than I would have expected, and frequently I had to slow down to pass a crowd or a slow-moving cart. There were families traveling to the Andover to see the summer beaches or farmers looking to sell their crops in the Calloway. No one seemed to notice me or seek me out, and I began to wonder if Avis had been justified in keeping me away so long.
Three weeks after leaving Firethorne, I could sense I was close. The trees of the Creekmont fully bloomed with small white flowers, and crunchy brown pinecones littered the ground. Hunting was easy here where the trees were thicker. I would be home in a few more days and–hopefully–have some answers. Poor Obsidian was worn ragged from the weeks of racing down the Greenwood.
She can get plenty of rest in Lagodon.
Just like every night since I left the Andover, I made a fire far from sight of the road and laid out a place to sleep. That night had the added bonus of a thick, fallen tree that could serve as a seat. I sat at my meager fire waiting for my evening dove to cook when a flash of white flew into the small clearing.
“What the
fuck
do you think you’re doing?” Avis was fuming mad as he slid off Pearl in an instant and tied her up next to Obsidian on the tree branch.
“You know–”
“Yeah, I know you’re an
idiot
. Are you trying to get yourself killed? Or just your horse? I can’t believe you would try to pull this. You’re not a boy anymore.”
“I
have
to help him.” I said it with as much finality as I could manage. I wasn’t going to be persuaded. Avis paced around the clearing, wringing his hands together and trying to get control of his breathing. I had never seen him so angry, and I was sure I wouldn’t like what happened next.
“I know.” He sat down on the felled tree next to me by the fire, holding his fist in his other hand. “I would have gone with you–if you had told me,” he said once he had calmed for a few minutes.
I couldn’t believe it. He was angry I left
without
him?
“How did you do it? Get away without me knowing?”
I brought up the image of Khea in the blue dress. “I should have known. But you think about her all the time as it is. How am I supposed to tell your daydreaming from your intentional escape plan?” He began to chuckle as he thought back to the night I left, surprised I was able to get away.
I shared my small bird once it had cooked through, still amazed he was there and supportive beyond all expectation. What surprised me most was how good it was to have him with me. We had been together constantly for so long, it just felt natural.
Just as I thought, it only took three more days to reach my fishing village on the western coast. It looked much like I remembered it, with large ships in the cove and skinny, dirty children underfoot. The villagers kept their distance, and I was reminded of how I felt when I first saw Obsidian. Horses were rare luxuries, and we had just come with two of the finest.
Reading the thoughts of a large group seemed easier than when I had left. I remembered struggling to concentrate on Rhorken in the square the day I chose to leave. In the past three years, I had learned to draw threads and cut the ones I didn’t need. The result was a remarkably quieter and less chaotic walk through the village.
Beyond their awe of the horses, not a single villager recognized me. I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised. I hadn’t spent much time in town as a child, and I had grown considerably since then. I was at least a head and shoulder over every other man in the village, barely resembling the thin, lanky boy that left. I returned as a tall, strong man sitting atop a very valuable horse.
As we moved towards my parents’ home, I noticed it looked even worse than I remembered. The roof had a soft spot that surely leaked in a light rain. The porch sagged straight into the ground, and the rest of the house wouldn’t be long after.
I quickly jumped down from Obsidian and handed Avis the reins. “If you want me–” he began to ask. I shook my head and loped up the weak steps.
“Father?” I called out into the house.
He sat in the kitchen, his wrinkled hands working a net hung up from the rafters. When he heard my voice, he stood and turned but didn’t look anywhere. My heart sank in a moment; he had gone blind, just like Quauhtil. His hair was fully grey and his torn clothes hung loosely around his thin frame, even smaller than I remembered.
“Who’s there?” His mind searched to think of whose voice he heard, but he couldn’t place me. He hadn’t heard my deeper voice since I’d left several years ago. I struggled with my breath as I realized he didn’t know me.
“It’s me. Lark.”
“Lark?” He lifted his arms to try to find me, and I had to step into his path to avoid watching him wander aimlessly. He was in disbelief, but ecstatic; he thought I would never come back.
“What are you doing here?” In the month it took to get to Lagodon, I hadn’t considered what I would tell him. Would he be upset that I had read his thoughts, known of his desperation, from the other side of Madurai?
“I–I got leave to come home. I wanted to see you and–” I didn’t have to finish before his mind was reeling, trying to figure out how to tell me about my mother. She had died despite the tea; she had just been too far gone. He had been alone for nearly four years.