by Nōnen Títi
Remag agreed that the creature had been cut with a digger. It was a baby, or it was little, at least. What would people have done if one of their children was killed? They’d attack someone for it, anyone.
Once confident that her patient would be okay, Nini rested her hands. Bruises needed time to heal. Thank Bue the woman had once again helped her out. Her apparition had taken the panic from Nini so she’d been able to think. Yet had she understood the message she’d have known to go for the mosses right away. Who she was Nini didn’t know, but from now on she would rely on her.
A bowl of food floated in from above. She looked up to see Yako holding it. “Orders from the cook. Eat before someone else needs you.”
“No more, please. I’m so tired.”
“I heard those things always come in threes.”
“Superstition.” She wasn’t hungry, but it appealed to her anyway. Food was comfort, so she ate to satisfy her emotional need. After that she left the shelter to visit the latrines. As she stepped outside she was confronted with a man tied to one of the trees.
Jema held the bowls of food in front of Laytji and Kristag, who had just come in. Kristag took his, but Laytji pretended not to see it, so Jema put it on the ledge beside her.
“How are we going to feed Tigor?” Marya asked. She, like Hani, had accepted Jema’s apology.
Jema shook her head. She didn’t much feel like spoon-feeding the prisoner. Earlier she’d tried to give him a drink of water, but he’d spat it back at her. Before that he’d begged them to get him out of the fog.
People had been told not to go running from it, to act normally. However difficult this was for many, Tigor had more reason to fear the fog than others; not only because it had taken his daughter, but because of the rumours about it defending the planet if it was hurt, and Tigor had hurt it.
Yako came in. “I wonder why there are so many people out on this dark day,” he said.
Jema had a pretty good idea why. It wasn’t just Society members who attended a penance. She hadn’t gone to see Frimon, because… Who was she to tell him how to raise his son? That would be the first thing he’d ask her, and rightfully so. Maybe it was true that parents needed to be stopped at some point, but it wasn’t her place to do so. Rorag had paid penance before. On the other hand, she owed Kunag at least the effort of trying, especially now that he was hurt.
Jema stepped outside for a moment. Kun had not quite set yet – though the thinning rim of light around the thick red cloud was the only evidence of it – there was still time. Leni would be home by now. Frimon would listen to her. “I’ve got to go.”
“Eat first,” Marya said.
“I’ll eat later. I’ll tidy up.”
Laytji came out behind her, holding Kristag. “I’m bringing him home. He’s too young for Rorag’s party,” she said, and turned north.
“Laytji?”
Defiantly, Laytji walked on, as deeply hurt by the memory Jema had uprooted last night as Kunag had been, but unlike Kunag, Laytji was taking revenge.
Jema’s attempts at saying sorry had been ignored as she was now, so she turned south. She’d try again tonight. First her promise to Kunag.
The Society fire was the only light under the looming fog, which hung like a blanket over the entire clearing. Too many people were heading that way. Too many were already there, lured by the spectacle and driven by instinct – despite the fog. Had Frimon started early? Because of it? Would he listen to reason?
As soon as she heard the voices of the audience repeat what Frimon had been saying, Jema knew she was too late. She recognized the sound of the strap. The group of onlookers was packed around the illuminated centre where the fire burned high. She pushed her way in.
Frimon stood in the middle. The Sjusa rested on his left arm as he read from it. Around his other hand he held the loop of the strap that was hanging beside his leg. Rorag was behind him, facing away and leaning his hands on the knees of a man who was sitting down, holding the boy’s wrists.
Jema’s stomach tightened. She scanned the audience for Leni, but found only Kisya in the crowd, along with some familiar faces of non-Society members.
“Repent,” Frimon told Rorag when he finished reading.
“Repent,” the audience repeated.
“No!” Rorag shouted.
Frimon raised the strap. Jema followed its movement through the air and watched the ends of it hit the back of the boy’s legs – no response from Rorag.
Frimon started reading from his print again. Did all these people know what he was talking about? Something about submitting and the sins of Bueror. If only she knew the story… She’d have to go to Leni’s home. Leni may have stayed inside.
“Jema?” Emi took her arm.
“Where’s your mom?” Jema asked.
“Still at Styna’s, I think.”
“Repent,” Frimon said.
“Repent,” the followers sang.
“Never!”
Why had Frimon decided to do this now, before Leni was back? This wasn’t penance the way Leni had explained it. This wasn’t consented; this was force. Another lash. Rorag’s knees buckled for a fraction.
“He’s not stopping. He’s supposed to stop at eight,” Emi whispered.
“What does he want from Rorag? Explain it to me.”
Emi told her that Frimon had asked Rorag to speak, as was custom, but Rorag had refused as he had refused to go down himself, so his father had made him and now he was trying to make him talk. “But he won’t, Jema. Rorag won’t give in.”
“Where’s Anoyak?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t want to be part of this.”
Both she and Anoyak had argued with Frimon, but all their pleas for him to not go through with it had been ignored.
Frimon read another section from his guide, turned to his audience, shouted his demand, Rorag refused, and another cycle began. How angry was he? How crazy? How long would he keep hitting his son? But Rorag was in this too. He could push the man in front of him, but he didn’t.
A power struggle! Frimon couldn’t lose face after having made it public. This had nothing to do with Rorag and Kunag, but everything with Rorag and Frimon. There was an aura of power around Rorag; he wasn’t the terrified boy Kunag had tried to describe. Rorag wasn’t frightened and neither was he humbled. He was no longer the shy little boy. His body was certainly no longer that of a boy, yet even a man wouldn’t be able to stand this kind of abuse for long.
“Repent.”
“Repent.”
“Make me!”
The sound of the strap.
“Help him,” Emi begged. “Bue, please.”
“Go get your mom,” Jema told her.
Emi set out in a run, while Jema contemplated her options. The eager mob with excited eyes didn’t help the situation. Pretending only, they cringed their faces at the beating, all the while hoping for more and obediently repeating Frimon’s words. No Leni. No Anoyak. Nobody to stop this. How long? Until Rorag collapsed? Why didn’t anybody step in? What had happened to all the DJar hysteria that popped up as soon as an adult so much as pointed at a child?
Jema knew the answer to that. There were no laws, so they went with their instincts, shielded by the veil of Frimon’s morality that had replaced the absent authority they had previously lived by. It was like watching the whole thing from above: the mob, the print, the strap, Rorag, and her own body standing there, not doing anything either.
“You idiot,” she scolded herself when she did step forward, because she didn’t want to be part of the crowd, couldn’t be just a follower. It wasn’t her business, but she was going to get involved anyway. “Enough is enough. Let him go, Frimon.”
Startled he stopped mid-sentence. In his eyes her reflection was dancing in the firelight. “Get away from here.”
“He didn’t do anything wrong. They were only talking.”
For the second time he looked up from his print. “Were you there?” he asked.
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br /> “Neither were you.”
“Go back to where you belong.” He turned his back to her, pulling the print closer to resume reading.
“It’s wrong. He’s not repenting,” Jema said.
“What would you know?”
At least he was responding to her. She repeated that Rorag didn’t deserve this, that Frimon was mistaken – anything to stop him from reading again, but then he gave up on his attempt and lifted the strap. “Repent.”
“Repent,” the mob chanted.
“No!”
Jema jumped forward so he couldn’t move his arm. Her heart thumped. “You can’t change your son’s nature! There’s nothing wrong with him, only with your narrow-minded morality!” she yelled into his ear.
He dropped his arm to look at her. “What would you know about it?”
“More than you do right now.”
“Stay out of this!” He turned away, purposely hitting her shoulder with his forearm – aware of the fire behind her she involuntarily stepped back – ready to resume reading.
“You’re punishing him for something that isn’t wrong!” She tried to shout over the noise so the people could hear. They needed to know. If only Leni would hurry. The crowd had to stop him, so he wouldn’t lose face in front of them. “Are you people just going to stand there and watch? He won’t say it!” Jema couldn’t feel the fear and anger she knew were inside her. She pulled at his arm to stop him lifting the strap again. “Stop it!”
“Stay out of this!” he yelled back at her.
She reached for the print on his other arm, the Sjusa, which gave him the assumed right to do this. It came unexpectedly easy. She stepped back to counter its momentum, then turned and let it sail from her hands straight into the fire. Something inside applauded her first flawless aim ever.
It wasn’t anger but disbelief that stared back at her through Frimon’s eyes. The next moment he jumped forward. Her heart pounded as she tried to stand her ground but he didn’t see her. He looked past her, ran past her. As she turned she saw him bend down into the flames to retrieve the print. He was saying something she couldn’t hear.
Somebody broke the silence. “Kill the fire!”
Then there were shouts – people running. The dark shape of his body in the orange flames; he fell – more screams – the sound of water splashing. Only Rorag stood as if stopped in time, like she was, while the world was in fast forward between them. She reached out. “Rorag?”
In one movement he turned, picked up the strap and lashed out at her, hitting only her leg. “This was mine!” Like his father’s, his eyes were mirrors in which she could see herself, but they were wet.
Jema turned and started walking, to get away from the noise. She walked the path alone in the foreboding darkness. Much too calm, she reached Benjamar’s home. “Nini, are you still in there? Frimon is hurt at his hearth.”
She didn’t wait for a response. A cold and distant feeling steered her away, west, up to the stream, through the stream, which had swollen with the last rains. The water cooled the burn in her leg. On the other bank were the rocks she often used as a thinking place. She didn’t need light to find it – to be alone; the water below her was the only sound, ahead the dark village and right above her the fog, a pitch-black roof: the judicator of Kun DJar.
She looked up. “I’ll leave it up to you.”
“Aryan, are you in?”
He registered that it was Maike’s voice before he was totally awake. He jumped up. “Ouch. Damn. Coming!” He crawled rather than walked to the entrance.
Remag wasn’t home yet. Maike carried a handmade saucer on which a lump of burning reed pulp created just enough light to see her warm breath in the cold air. The plamals were dark; they’d had no light to collect today.
“How is Kunag?”
“He’s going to be okay,” she answered.
The lamp suddenly shone a lot brighter.
“I need your help,” she said.
“More problems?”
“Yes, more. We’ve lost someone: Jema. She’s run off. We’re looking for her, but it’s too dark with the fog. You brought a big battery lamp?”
“Yes, we have two. Hang on.” He found the lamps and pulled on a shirt before returning to her. “Where do we look?”
She sketched the rough area. “You take the new road. You know that part best.”
Maike left with one of the lamps. Aryan put on his shoes and coat and walked toward the south latrines and from there in the direction of the new road. It was so dark and the fog hung so low that he automatically hunched, as when walking in a cave with a very low roof. He wouldn’t be surprised if it eventually just came down to the ground and crushed them.
The search was futile. The light was barely bright enough to see where he was going. How would he find a person who was hiding, as he’d understood Jema was? She’d see him coming long before. Why would she hide, anyway?
He walked on, just to please Maike. It was all he could do for her anymore. As soon as the road was finished he’d be on his way back. Of course, he’d left town for lack of excitement. “There’s no pleasing me,” he said out loud. The sound didn’t carry.
The walk, though fruitless, did him good. This fog only had to start making its vibrating sounds and the entire population would be dead in no time, but it didn’t and a strange sort of comfort came from its closeness. Or maybe it was knowing that the boy would live and Maike had asked for his help. Well, she’d needed his lamps, but hadn’t refused his offer. If she was still angry, she’d not shown it.
Aryan stumbled over a rock and his leg immediately reminded him that he was no longer young. Okay, this was far enough. He was going back.
He had already nearly reached the latrines again when he saw another light.
It was Leyon. “No luck?”
“Nothing. We’re wasting our time.”
“It must be really late,” Leyon said, guessing, as there were no moons to give them any indication.
“Yeah, it must be.”
“Kunag is getting better.”
“I heard.”
“Is it true that you want to leave Kun DJar?”
Aryan told him it was unlikely, since the last good lander had been ruined by the fog.
“Most people like the village better than town,” Leyon said. “Normally it’s peaceful, you know. It’s just that these elections have thrown everything.”
“And my coming here.”
“You?” Leyon stood still. “When Maike said that, at Benjamar’s home, she meant Frimon.” He started moving again.
Now it was Aryan’s turn to stop. “Come again?”
“I should have told you, I guess, but I thought it was kind of cool that you were jealous of me.”
“Kind of cool?”
Leyon took another step, maybe in case Aryan got angry, but there was no anger left in him; not for Leyon, anyhow.
“So why now?”
“Because everybody’s gone crazy. Jema pushed Frimon into the fire. That’s why we’re looking for her. Nini is trying to save his life.”
Aryan didn’t have to ask if the kid was telling the truth. He had watched Leyon jump on the man yesterday. The intensity of the attack had seemed out of proportion. There was no doubt that Frimon was a powerful madman, but two attacks on his life in as many days?
One of the trees still had Tigor tied to it, forgotten with all the trouble.
“Could have been you,” Aryan said.
Silence. Then a laugh. “Yes, it could. I was lucky, I guess.”
Despite everything that happened before, Aryan had to like Leyon now. He was honest; too honest, and yet he had lied. Maybe he wasn’t that bad. Maybe nobody was. Even Tigor was just a guy with a bad temper.
Maike was waiting for them. She handed Aryan back the lamp. “Kun will be up soon.” She studied the fog above them for a moment, as if to determine if that would do any good, and turned to the entrance.
“Maike?”
She waited.
“Can’t we at least sit down together for one meal?”
“When?”
“How about tomorrow?”
“Okay. Kundown at my place.”
He left feeling almost cheerful. Of course, she shared her Hearth with ten others, but she’d not said no.
RECONNAISSANCE
1/5/5/8/1
The jars with the voting pebbles stood on either side of the entrance to his home – silent statues to a lost cause.
Benjamar sat on the edge of his mat, on which Kunag was sleeping. Outside, Tigor moaned. Half the population was still awake, too upset to sleep.
His own ignorance angered Benjamar. They’d not been ready for elections, just as they hadn’t been ready in town. It was almost laughable that the two people who had everything riding on these elections would never be in the new council. Tigor had blown it for good, even in the eyes of most farmers, and Frimon had died just a little while ago.
Nini had done all she could but, while she had succeeded with Kunag, she had failed with Frimon. Benjamar had watched her silent struggle as she’d treated the burns, in vain, desperately trying all the plamals she possessed to stop the shock, but it had been a hopeless battle. All in all, it hadn’t taken longer than one DJar hour. Now she was out again. She had wiped her eyes and gone looking for Jema, convinced she knew where to find her, though the search party had returned without any clues.
Once again, people had taken the law into their own hands, and this time it had gotten out of control. How many times in history had this happened before? How many martyrs had problems like these produced? Already some of the Society people had spoken of it – spoken of a new Bueror.
What would happen now? Some bystanders had said something about Jema pushing him. Others said Frimon had walked in. But what if they decided she was to blame? What if all the witnesses went with the loudest voice or with their emotions? Eyewitness reports were notoriously influenced by wishful thinking. Would they demand a life for a life like they had in town? Who was going to decide what was just if the majority of the population called for the ultimate?