Slowly, Percy and Adra started to talk. It seemed that to them, there was little choice other than going with their original plan. They would catch the first caravan towards Regalia and start fresh. Hwosh envied them the simplicity of their choices, as well as the decisive nature each seemed to have. Lastly, he wished he had someone to rely on like that. Then he realized that he did, and always would.
The sun rose without anybody sleeping at all. They had spent hours talking of many things, but mostly about the past. It was another night of friendship, and none wished to ruin it. When the three went towards the caravan stops, Percy finally stopped them. “It’s time to decide, buddy. We’d love to have you with us, you know.”
“I know… and I’d love to be with you guys. Here,” he said, a sudden idea coming to him. “Try reading my mind.”
Adra frowned. “Now?” she asked with worry, but Percy assured her he had enough strength. His eyes went blank, and Hwosh started.
I like my bandanna, but it’s a little too empty. The best part is the string, and I really want to add things to it. Maybe Percy and Adra can add something. Locks of hair? Nah, maybe from her, but his hair might start to fall off. Oh, one of those small stars on his hat. If he gave one to me, I’ll put the two next to each other. But then again, I hope the stars aren’t too big or get ripped or something like that. Maybe they’ll say no. About saying no, what if the line for the western city gate is too long? That would be rea-
“Enough!” exclaimed Percy Verde with a laugh. “You almost gave me a headache, you damn worry worm! And we’d love to give you exactly what you want. Adra, he wants a lock of your hair for his string.” The two gave Hwosh a lock of hair and a small silvery piece of cloth shaped like a star, although he almost managed to nick Adra with his sword and got yelled at. After he affixed them where they belonged, Hwosh felt much better.
“Well?” asked Adra expectantly. She was crying a little bit, and so was Percy. Hwosh decided that old men shouldn’t cry, because it’s highly infectious.
“Friendships are strings between hearts,” Hwosh Ru’ub recited, “and ours are made of steel. The times spent with you were some of the best of my life. Just come to visit, guys. I’ll do well here, and work hard and be the best I can be. I can do it, I think. But I’ll always be with you.”
Worth:
Year: 879 Post Kerallus. 171 Pre Adventus
M’kousi was barely past eight years old when she was forced to grow up. It was a universal truth that did it, but it could also be said that a child’s innocence was precious, so perhaps she should have been spared its bite for a few years longer. Still she saw and learned, eyes going red with the wetness of tears as she did. Her mother was not spared the noble woman’s whip, and young M’kousi was not spared the bitterness of this one truth: All men are not born equals.
Forever after, her mother was marked a thief by brutal tradition requiring a branding, and the young child had been required to attend the ceremony, for it was believed that wickedness was an illness that could be passed on by unqualified parenting, and the only cure was the cold fear of hot iron. Sanapi was given one tiny bit of mercy, for the noblewoman’s husband had known she only stole bread to feed her child, and so allowed the brand to be put upon her calf rather than her face. Still, although both men and women showed off the back primarily, seeing a strong worker’s bulging calves would have delivered her more opportunity than was given.
In the five years after that, Sanapi’s coal black skin, formerly smooth and the envy of villagers for miles around, began to gain a hardness like old leather after being battered by sun, worry, and hard labor. Her face drooped into an almost permanent scowl, and premature aging caused her back, once corded and shown off by the open backed yellow tunic that had dubbed her the nickname “Night’s sun”, slumped slowly and irreversibly forwards as if to drag her down towards the mud.
One night Sanapi came back to their single room clay home in pain, her intricate braids a mess. M’kousi had been by the hearth, then eleven years old but a competent cook already in hopes of lessening a mother’s burdens. When she heard Sanapi’s grunts of pain she sprang in fear, for the once black skinned beauty worked construction sites more often than not and fatal injuries were not uncommon in Ghouti tribes, deep within tundras in the southwest of Baku. However, what she saw caused her both horror and rage, for her mother’s back, when revealed in the firelight, was crisscrossed with fresh horizontal slashes. “Who did this?” asked the girl, reaching for a knife.
“Peace, child,” scolded Sanapi quietly whilst seating herself on the one and only stool in their house. Ghouti tradition dictated that mothers were to have their own personal chair, and so its smooth wooden surface had only ever been touched by Sanapi.
“How did this happen? Uncle Asali is a good man!”
“He is, but he has a new deputy called Adabu. Old Uncle Asali is good but old, and Adabu is tempered like a bat at noon but he gets work done and has energy aplenty. It was my fault, thinking I was still young and insisting they still give me a young man’s share of wall to push. The thing came down and I had to be whipped.”
“But that’s not fair,” wailed M’kousi. “You’ve been doing good work for a year now!”
“Yes, but today I didn’t. Remember: A farmer who overestimates his earth will reap only seeds. Know what you have and understand. This,” she pointed at her right calf, where the ugly brand depicting an old man stuck in a hole and reaching miserably for the sun still stood out bright against her skin. Then she pointed on her back, “Is what I have reaped. This is the hand Colna and the spirits of sun, moon and all that exists between them have dealt me. I should accept it. Thankfully master Adabu,” Sanapi cringed at her mother’s use of honorifics for such a vile man, but kept her peace, “has decided to allow me work, but with less pay to make up for what I’ve wasted. We’ll need to make do for now.” Inside, M’kousi seethed, remembering the times her own flesh and blood had been stepped on, the laugh on that noblewoman’s face as she literally kicked Sanapi for taking a loaf of bread the cooks in her house had left out for animals. She decided that it would not happen to her. She would grow a tree of Iron within her soul and the roots of weakness would perish.
“I will work with you,” she started, but Sanapi interjected.
“No. You will study. I want you to have a better life. Maybe you can be a servant in the future, if you learn well.” People were not created equals. There it was again, the best she could hope for was servitude. There would no reprieve if she stayed…
And so it was that when she turned thirteen, a woman by any standard, M’kousi left home. She told her mother it was to find work elsewhere, to study; to learn. In truth, she wanted to run away. She could only find greatness by discarding her heritage, for she would forever be the thief’s daughter within the village and all of Ghouti’s tribes, numerous as the stars. Deep within, her horror at Sanapi’s branding and whipping had burnt low for years, turning slowly into resentment for her mother’s acceptance of lowliness and, by extension, perhaps an inherent worthlessness.
Thus M’kousi left, taking with her Seris and other forms of traditional clothing with a fair amount of pride. She also took with her Sanapi’s blessings, as well as those from the villagers who had never lent a hand through hard times. Their resignation offended her, but there was no reason to tell them that they had been born lesser than others and that she wanted no part in it.
M’kousi was a smart woman, and so she found job upon job wherever she went, mostly bookkeeping for all manners of shops. Often the girl chose candy stores, for she was particularly fond of what was not to be had as a child. She also learnt about other cultures, slowly and surely as more foreigners started to mix into the mostly Ghotian crowd. The girl turned into a woman and turned towards a scholarly mind as she neared the continent’s eastern front, where the lands were more civilized, though they were still part of Baku. Sooner or later, the clothes of her homeland were discarded in favor of mor
e fashionable things, and she began to pretend she was from Heza, a nearby town. By now, the lowliness of her family and old friends was mostly forgotten, but she would awake at times in a night terror, and she felt the fear stalk her like a night owl.
One day, she was tasked with attending to a rich man from the Far East as he went hunting. That she did, holding his bags and speaking of nothings. “And that bird, M’kousi?” he asked finally, taking aim with his magical vial.
“A red plumed sparrow, sir,” she answered politely. Her head was adorned by a feathered hat. “It feeds on insects that live in the Keigo trees, which are the most common here.” As she spoke, the woman pointed at such a tree. It had seven branches, each ending in what seemed like a cloud of thorns protecting yellow fruit. The man chucked his vial, catching the bird right in the beak. The vial broke then exploded into a small fireball, dropping the bird. He sighed in satisfaction as she went to fetch his dinner.
“I wonder if this bird has a soul.”
“Who would know, sire? What amount of soul a bird has.”
“Amount?”
“Yes, sire. The inner self. For animals and people, it is not the same, for we are better. It is not the same between humans either.”
He looked at her in surprise. “Do you think so? I always thought character fluctuated.”
“Maybe,” she shrugged, “But I know that men are not born equal. There are people who would have been better born birds or insects. And there are others with inner virtue. I can tell that you think me foolish, but I believe this.” Her voice was quiet and resigned to the truth.
“And you think this has something to do with a person’s soul?”
“It must, sire. Isn’t a soul our deepest core, master?”
“Huh… you remind me of a man in the east. He lived in our largest mountain ranges, beyond Yotaku. They say he believes people’s worth in life is directly proportional to the amount of soul they have, and that he can see how much that is. Many go to learn from him each year, and he teaches them all without exception. To find out how much your life is worth… such a terrifying ability, isn’t it? Girl?”
M’kousi had not been paying attention, so lost she was in his words. She agreed readily, and the man thought nothing of it, but the next month M’kousi had left town, asking leave of her employer. He was a good man, and fond of her fire, so let her leave and gave her money for part of the journey as well as many sweet treats. She went east, crossing the Yesgor, the earthen bridge between Baku and the eastern continent.
It was magical, what with its red lamps barely visible amongst water coming down from above and buffeted up from the sea. It was constant storm and tree high waves and cold. The buildings twisted and curved in magnificent ways unknown to her, and the people kept a warmth in their hearts to stave off the outside gloom. As she went, she made friends and lost them, gained work and money as she did odd jobs to pay for her trip. Wherever there was a book on magic, she read it, especially if it had anything to do with seeing auras. However, none could teach her how to see the worth in a man’s soul. She even fell in love with a man on the way, and they went together for a year, but he soon became tired of something within her. “You just don’t trust people,” he said finally, leaving her in the sweltering rain in front of a restaurant boasting a single red lantern above its upwards arched roof. That night she had wept bitter tears, but ended up thinking that the man must not have been worth much if he could hurt her in that way. She could not allow herself to be ruled as her mother had been. She had to be more.
And so it was that finally, seven years later, M’kousi reached Yotaku and ventured even farther east. Villagers here and there would know of the man she sought, and rice farmers would speak of him with great respect. Many times she was invited to stay, and she did for a while, but knew her quest awaited, so she climbed the mountain they pointed to, taking a donkey with her to carry supplies. Tired and nearly frozen solid despite the heavy coats, delirious with hunger, she finally found herself upon a yellow robed old man with a moustache down to his feet walking down a mountain trail. It was a slightly underwhelming meeting, for he had simply come across her on the road and she almost passed him by before realizing who the man stepping humbly along the road was. His warm eyes pierced through her, and the black skinned woman threw herself at his feet. She said, “Master Kasuri, I have crossed continents to see you. I need to learn how to see a man’s worth in his soul.”
“Why?” he asked, “Come into my cave, have some soup, and tell me slowly. I’ll teach you, but the payment is a story.”
So she told him, in that cavern of rough rock. He sat by the entrance as if unphased by cold. She told him of her mother’s whipping, the slow realization that there was something lowborn in Sanapi, the fear that the noblewoman was somehow better than them. “I have to find out how much I’m worth. If I can do that, maybe I can somehow better myself. If I know what makes those of higher caliber better, then I can surely replicate it. If Colna and the spirits are fair, then that noblewoman was somehow better than my mother. I need to know what it was that set her apart.”
The man looked sad yet resigned. “You may lose your surety afterwards. It is, however, true that the amount of soul a man has corresponds to the worth of his life. What if it turns out we’re set in stone and you’re just a lowly peasant?”
She was prepared, and he must have seen it in his eyes. Still she said it. “Then there will be nothing to change.” At worst, she would be as worthless as her mother, regardless of knowledge and hard work.
For a month he taught her. She gazed at mountains in the horizon for hours on end, recited incantations, and prepared herself. At times, the magical energies within seemed like fire within her eyes, and she would scream. When that happened, the old man would put cloth soaked with ice water over her eyes. She felt very deeply for him, and knew that soon, for better or for worse, the truth would be revealed. His calm anticipation was palpable. Perhaps to him she was just a poor girl, for she often saw pity in his eyes when he thought she could not see.
Then one day, something magical happened. She and master Kasuri were meditating together, him peacefully, she struggling, when suddenly the girl opened her eyes and there was something. A golden cloud floated, suffusing the man from chest to naval. She gasped and the man smiled.
“Master-“
“I know. Your training here is done. I hope this gives you peace, child.”
Gone she was, like the wind. After thanking Kasuri, the first thing she did was find a nearby lake surrounded by trees. The water was calm and she could see herself reflected in it. Her breath caught in her throat, and M’kousi’s stomach churned and clenched. Then she focused on the calm and looked. There it was, finally, appearing like a mirage as she recited the incantation: a cloud suffusing her from chest to naval, golden in color. It was identical to the one her master had displayed, and shocked the girl to her core. Could she truly be as spiritually complete as her master? She had never thought herself so pure, and it filled her chest with joy. Like a dark cloud before a sunny day, her doubts were lifted. Gone was the shadow of her mother toiling for someone else, shoveling filth and doing hard manual labor. It was with a light heart that the girl went down the mountain, sure that everything was going to be fine in her life.
Then something went wrong. It began three days after she began the journey back to Ghouti, for although she was free of her family’s curse and had no desire to go back to that village, her knowledge would be put to better use there. Besides, the cold in the eastern continent, Sehkai, was unappetizing, as were its sweets. Out of curiosity, she recited the incantation whilst waiting on a noble’s procession. Her cloud was from the chest to the naval, golden, as were the guards’. Even the commoners on the streets had the exact soul. Only the animals were different; from them she saw nothing. Panicking, M’kousi ran to the beggars and saw. Then in desperation, she went to the jail. She begged the guards until, thinking she was insane, they granted her wish to se
e the meanest, worst prisoner they had. They took her down the dungeons, path illuminated only by their torches. She eyed them absentmindedly. There, beneath ornate obsidian armor, the guards also had the same cloud.
The guards dropped her before a dark cell, set alone at a corridor’s end. There she could barely glimpse a man’s face, where light and shadow met. She knew that this criminal at least would be different. His soul must be tiny, dismal and black. But no. When she saw and recited the incantation quietly, his soul was like all the others.
“What is it, girly? Why are you crying? I’ll have you know, I only like to kill old men. You don’t whet my appetite one bit.”
So M’kousi cried and laughed, letting the guards escort her from the building where she laughed at the horrid irony of it all. All this time she looked for the worth of people, condemned her mother and all those others. She wanted to prove her own worth, when in fact…
Strangers:
Year: 982 Post Kerdallus, 128 Pre adventus
Gurei woke up well before dawn, stirred by something. For a second, things felt alright. For one first blissfully still instant, the world waited and held his breath. More importantly, his own insides waited a little. Then they came crashing down and he closed his eyes again, hoping for the void. “Gurei,” came a voice, gruff with years of use. “Katou!”
Before the boy could say anything, the other boy sleeping in his room replied, “Coming!”
The boy groaned, getting up to his feet and hastily changing into something suitable for the muddy work ahead. He glanced at Gurei. “Coming?” he asked, then added, “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” said the straight haired youth. He moved a strand away from his eyes, since it sometimes felt the horrid thing would cut him with how straight it grew. He felt like a surudoi, all thorny fur and brittleness. Without another word his twin brother left their small one room lean to and went out to help out with the day’s work. This was routine in its own way, and allowed Gurei to take a few moments for himself. These he used to gather his strength. He had to get up.
Tales Of Grimea Page 11