by Pearl North
“These two will look at my son and see if they can help him. The rest of you will wait here with your wagon,” the head man informed them.
The woman led Po and Jan into one of the huts. “He had another fit this morning. He’s sleeping now.”
The boy was about eight years old. He lay on a pallet in the corner of the small hut, a thin blanket over him. His skin shone with sweat. “What kind of maniac would hit an eight-year-old with a mind lancet?” muttered Po.
Jan shook his head. “I wish we could wipe those damn things off the face of the earth, anyway.”
Po knelt beside the boy and put a hand to the side of his face. His skin was hot to the touch. He smelled the boy’s breath. “Fever.”
Po placed his thumbs over the inside of the boy’s elbows, one on each side, and closed his eyes, allowing his breath to adopt the boy’s stuttering rhythm. He hadn’t performed kinesiology since the fire. Would he still be able to?
Nothing happened at first. Po kept his focus on his breath as despair tried to distract him. Then the image of a raspberry patch came into his mind. One side of the patch was barren; the other was so overloaded with fruit that the branches broke under the weight. The boy’s energy was out of balance, that much was certain. Po began to pluck the berries. He placed them at the base of the barren side of the bush and watered it, so that new seedlings would sprout, refreshing that side of the patch.
When he came out of the trance, the boy was sleeping peacefully, his breath deep and even. Po felt his forehead. It was cooler.
Jan and the boy’s mother watched him from the doorway. “I balanced his energy. He should sleep better now and hopefully the fever will continue to go down.”
“If we stay here tonight, Po can check him in the morning and see if the work has held,” said Jan.
Po blinked at Jan’s use of kinesthetic terminology.
“I pay attention, unlike some people,” said Jan.
The boy’s mother bowed to Po and lifted the curtain over the door for him. “Thank you.”
Embarrassed, Po hesitated. Jan put a hand on his back and propelled him through the doorway. Outside, the head man and several other villagers waited. The woman nodded her head.
The man smiled for the first time since they’d arrived. “Thank you for helping my son,” he said, and then he turned to the rest of the chorus, standing clustered near the wagon. “Stay tonight and share our fire.”
The day was warm, the sun bright. Po swayed as the customary weakness following a trance overcame him.
“Easy there, Poacher,” said Jan, steadying him by the arm. “You were in that trance a long time. How about a drink of water?”
“Thanks,” said Po, and let Jan lead him to the wagon.
“So why did you want me in there with you, anyway?” asked Jan. “I don’t know anything, and I can’t do anything. You handled it all.”
Po shrugged and took a seat on the back of the wagon. “I didn’t know if I was still going to be able to do it, after everything that’s happened.” He hesitated, staring at Jan. He was the closest thing to a male friend Po had. Now he looked back at him with neutrality. “I panicked,” said Po, “and you were nearby, and I thought you might go along.”
“Okay, I guess I can see that.”
“Do you still think I set the fire?”
“No,” said Jan, handing him a water skin and taking a seat next to him on the back of the wagon. “I think you were tricked.”
Po drank. “I’m glad you don’t think that of me.”
“Yeah? Since when do you care what a male thinks?”
He shrugged. Jan had a point. “What does Hilloa think?”
Jan leaned back on his hands and laughed, his face lifted to the sky. “Seven Tales, Po, you are hopeless.”
As they had at the previous village, they sat in a circle around the fire pit in the center of the village, only this time the chorus contributed as much to the meal as the villagers did. The conversation drifted to the deteriorating conditions on the plain. “Used to be we’d harvest two crops of barley a year,” said a woman who looked to be about Siblea’s age. “Now we’re lucky if we get one.”
“Last year, a dust storm wiped out our seedlings and we had to start all over a month late in the season,” said a man.
“The land gets drier and more infertile every year.”
Siblea told them about methods of irrigation and fertilization. “If you are willing, we can teach you these things, as well as how to read.”
The head man mulled over Siblea’s offer. “We will see how my son is in the morning.”
The next day, Po checked on the head man’s son. He was much improved, sitting up and eating a big bowl of barley gruel. When Po examined him, he needed only minor adjustments. “His system is very resilient,” he told the boy’s mother. “He just needed a push in the right direction.”
She hugged Po.
The boy felt better and was restless. He wanted to join the others in the field, but his mother forbade it. “You must get your strength back,” she told him.
“Perhaps if we sat outside…,” said Po. “The fresh air might do him some good.”
So they sat outside the head man’s hut and Po read aloud to the boy from The Book of the Night. And soon four or five other children who were too small for the fieldwork were gathered in a circle around them. At midday, when people returned from the fields for a bit to eat and a rest, some of them sat and listened as well.
Po gave the boy another kinesiology session that evening, and confirmed that his pathways were solid and in balance.
After they’d eaten the evening meal, the head man said, “Have you all heard the story of why the Ayorites have curly hair?”
“Because the Goat Girl was struck by lightning trying to out-shout thunder,” said Jan.
“No, not the Goat Girl version, the Fly story.”
“You know a Fly story?” Jan was skeptical.
“Yes I do,” he said with pride. “My grandma told me it, and she was told it by her grandpa, and he was the brother-in-law of the next-door neighbor of the Boy who Outran the Wind.”
“Okay, then, let’s hear it.”
Po was shocked at this confrontational exchange, but from the smiling faces of the villagers, and of Jan, he guessed that this was some sort of traditional call-and-response.
“Yes I do,” the head man continued, his chest expanding with pride. “My grandma told me it, and she was told it by her grandpa, and he was the brother-in-law of the next-door neighbor of the Boy Who Outran the Wind.”
Jan cocked his head to one side. “Okay, then, let’s hear it.”
Well, as you know, many many people have wondered why Ayorites have brown and curly hair. And one of them was this boy who could run faster than anyone, even faster than the wind. Well one day, this boy and the Goat Girl were arguing about why Ayorites have brown and curly hair. She had her version, and we’ve all heard it, but the boy who ran was skeptical, and he decided to go ask the Fly. So he ran out into the desert. He ran so far and so fast that he outpaced not just the wind, but the Last Wind of the World. His feet turned into sand. And still he ran. His knees turned into sand, and he ran on. Finally all of him was sand except his mouth to ask the question and his ears to hear the answer and he found the Fly. Not just any fly, you know, but the Fly, the one who guards all the mysteries of this world. And he asked the Fly, Why do Ayorites have brown and curly hair? And this is what the fly told him:
A long, long time ago, this world was nothing. There was no life here, and no light, and no air for life to breathe. There was no sky, no sun, no moons, no wind or rain. There wasn’t even room for emptiness.
And then some people who knew how to walk sideways through time came along and decided to do something about it. These weren’t ordinary people like you or me, just like the Fly isn’t an ordinary fly. These were the People Who Walk Sideways in Time. And they could go wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted. Well, who can say
, with people like that, why they do the things they do? But whatever the reason, they made a place for their children to play and they took their children’s favorite stories and made people, like us, for their kids to play with.
Now this is a long and roundabout way of answering your question, I’m sure, said the Fly to the Boy Who Outran the Wind, and I’m sure you’re all thinking the same thing now. What does all of this have to do with Ayorites having curly hair? Well, the answer is simple. One of the favorite characters from the most popular story of the Children of the People Who Walk Sideways in Time had brown and curly hair. So that’s why.
The headman sat back and took a sip from his cup. He looked at them with evident satisfaction.
That satisfaction was not mirrored on the others’ faces. There was a pause, and then Jan said, “See, this is why I hate Fly stories. They never make any sense.”
The head man shrugged. “You think curly hair being caused by a lightning strike makes more sense?”
Their conversation rolled over Po. He couldn’t stop thinking about the People Who Walk Sideways in Time. What did that mean?
He never found out, because the next day, the chorus departed at dawn.
Five days later they encountered another village. This time, the moment they were spotted, a call went out and the entire village came running toward them. Siblea and Selene went ahead to meet them. The tall old man held his hands out like a priestess accepting the accolades of the faithful. “Greetings, people of the plain,” he said.
The crowd did not slow down. Po, observing from near the wagon along with Hilloa, Jan, and Baris, noticed that the way they held their pitchforks and adzes was anything but casual. He glanced at Hilloa. She shook her head. As one, they ran forward. “Libyrarian!” Po shouted. “Selene! Come back!”
“Siblea! Siblea!”
Behind them, Baris and Jan hastened to catch up. “What is it?”
The first of the villagers were now within shouting distance. “Get away from here, lit scum!” shouted the angry villagers. “We’ve had enough of your raiding!”
“Peace, brothers and sisters of the plain,” said Selene.
“We are the Chorus of the Word and we bring you news of the Redemption.”
“You took all our grain!” The man in the lead raised a cudgel and struck Selene over the head with it. She crumpled to the ground.
“Fuck you and your books!”
Siblea fell beneath a blow from another. Po grabbed Selene under the arms and started dragging her away. Someone struck him across the shoulders with the haft of an adze and he staggered. Jan fended the man off with a kick to his groin. “Hurry, get her to the wagon!” he shouted.
Hilloa wrested an adze from a villager and struck him with it while Baris helped Siblea, who was bleeding from a cut to his forehead, retreat. They all piled back into the wagon and Po, the largest of them, grabbed the handles of the cart and ran as the villagers shouted and pelted rocks at them.
By the time he dared to stop, Selene had revived and Jan had bandaged the wound to Siblea’s forehead. They made camp high up on a plateau. Po performed kinesiology on Selene, treating her concussion and coming away with a lasting headache. No one asked him to treat Siblea and Po was glad. He took his bedroll from the wagon and went to sleep.
“I think someone’s trying to make us look bad,” said Jan, long after Po thought everyone had gone to sleep.
“But how would they even know about us?” said Hilloa. “It’s more likely it’s just some bandits running a scam on these people.”
“In any case,” said Selene, “we must be on the lookout for this group, and for any other villagers who’ve been harmed by them. I think for now, we had better head straight for the Corvariate Citadel. No more villages.”
She got no arguments.
15
Ayma
There was no sound but the wind. The silence of the plain echoed in the empty, burning blue dome of the sky. Po wiped the sweat off the back of his neck with a rag long since soaked with it and now starting to crust up around the edges.
They had just descended a ridge and a wide, flat plain of red sandstone lay before them, bits of its broken surface scattered like waves on the ocean. How he missed the sea.
“There,” said Baris, pointing to the far horizon.
For a moment Po saw water, but it was only the memory of it still cherished by his eyes. No, it was a low, mounded form, shadowy and blue with distance. “The Corvariate Citadel,” said Siblea.
As they neared the citadel, they found that rocks and pebbles were not all that lay strewn upon the ground. Corn husks, broken sandals, scarves, socks: all manner of human debris scattered the plain that was now furrowed by cartwheels. “What is all this?” asked Jan.
“It must be stuff people dropped along the way on the pilgrimage to the Redemption,” said Siblea.
It was eerie to see such abundant evidence of people, and yet except themselves, there was not another soul in evidence. Even when they reached the citadel itself, with its massive walls of gray stone rising up before them, its great arched gate standing partway open, there was no one—no sound, no movement save the wind fluttering in a red kerchief that had snagged upon a silverleaf bush sprouting up from the base of the wall.
“I don’t know about this,” said Selene. “Something feels wrong.”
Siblea nodded. “The place is deserted. Not all of the people left for the Redemption. What’s happened to them?”
“I think, as a precaution, we’d better leave the wagon here for now,” said Selene, and Siblea agreed. Po wheeled it up a rise and into the shelter of a rock overhang. When he returned, the rest of the chorus was already following Siblea through the gate.
It towered fifty feet above them, and even half-shut as it was, there was ample room for him, Jan, Hilloa, and Baris to walk through side by side.
Once inside, Po did not know which was more shocking: the sheer size of the place or its apparent utter desertion. They stood on a broad avenue that was lined with buildings similar in design to the Libyrinth—domes and towers—only these were made from gray stone, not sandstone. The avenue ran the length of the citadel to a building on the far side of the city that was at least as big as the Libyrinth itself. Its front was fashioned to resemble an enormous gray face with its mouth wide open. “The Temple of Yammon,” said Siblea.
Streetlights stood on either side of the street. They were not the kind Po knew from Ilysies, which used palm-glow. These were made to run on electricity. Some of them were still lit, but others appeared to be broken, their lightbulbs shattered. It seemed a shame for such glory and opulence to fall into disrepair.
Smaller streets ran off of this main avenue in a regular, grid-shaped pattern. Po spotted a young woman peering at them from the shadow of a doorway in one of these narrower tributaries. Just as he was about to point her out, she disappeared inside. The street was lifeless again. Nothing moved.
Po was about to say something about the young woman when Siblea muttered, “By the Song and the Seven Tales,” and hurried toward a row of streetlights that Po had assumed to be jury-rigged with hanging lanterns of some sort. But they weren’t lanterns that hung suspended from the lampposts. Black-robed figures hung by their necks, lifeless and in varying stages of decomposition, on both sides of the street, one after another, seemingly all the way to the temple itself.
Baris went pale and was sick in the street. For once, Po felt sorry for him.
“Yammon’s tonsils,” swore Siblea. “What has happened here?”
“Where is everybody else?” Selene wondered aloud. “They can’t all have come on pilgrimage or been…”
“I saw someone just now, but she ran away as soon as I spotted her,” said Po.
“Talis?” said Baris, wiping his mouth as he looked up at one of the more recently hanged victims. “It’s Talis!” He turned to Siblea, pleading, as if somehow Siblea could make it not true. “Who did this?” His voice rang out along the str
eet and echoed back at them.
Moved, Po reached out a hand to comfort Baris. The other boy slapped it away, grimaced, and then struck Po a heavy blow on the side of his face. Caught off guard, Po swayed. Baris took advantage of his disorientation and rushed him, grabbing him by the waist and bringing him down. Baris straddled his chest and cocked his fist to punch him in the face with it.
“Baris!” shouted Siblea.
Baris shook his head. Then, suddenly there came a crashing, cacophonous sound, so abrupt and harsh in the surrounding silence that they all jumped. Po pushed Baris off him and got to his feet. “What is that?” said Jan.
Selene shook her head. The sound grew louder and Po made out a few words: “I positively hoped, that my aspect was not so—what shall I say?—so—unappetizing: a touch of fantastic vanity which fitted well with the dream sensation that pervaded all my days at that time.” They were interspersed by a clash and clatter, a noise that set Po’s teeth on edge.
“You. Over here.” This was another voice, much softer, and it came from the alley near which they stood. It was the young woman Po had seen a moment before. He tugged at Selene’s sleeve and pointed.
The girl motioned frantically for them to join her, and by now, Siblea and the others had noticed her, too. With anxious glances in the direction of the clanging and shouting, they hurried toward her. She was about Po’s age and she wore a skirt and blouse that had seen better days. She had large brown eyes and long, lush, dark hair. She was short and round and curved in every possible way and Po loved her on sight. “Follow me,” she whispered. “You don’t want to be caught out here by them.”
Siblea narrowed his eyes. “And who are you?”
“I’m nobody, but unless you want to wind up like them,” she nodded at the bodies hanging from the lamp posts, “you’d better follow me.”
Siblea turned to Selene. “It could be a trap,” he said.
“One can’t live with one’s finger constantly on one’s pulse,” shouted the voice from up the street, louder now. Siblea was right, of course. The stranger very well could be leading them into a trap, but that voice and the sounds that accompanied it were so menacing, Po could not help but edge closer to her, and he noticed that Baris, Jan, and Hilloa did the same. Selene shook her head at Siblea and said, “We must get out of the street.”