The Focus Stone (The Tome of Law Book 1)

by Matthew W. Harrill

  It was not long before two parcels were presented to them. Each one was packed as full as possible, but neither was too great a burden to bear. Draped with furs against the cold, Ju could barely feel the straps of the pack tugging against him. With a mere wave to the men in the camp, they set off into the snowy wastes. Winter was gradually setting in, and so Ju did not recognise most of the terrain that they had previously covered. The ice covered everything, making it appear as inhospitable a place as any could imagine. He was starting to see a different reality though, as the skills he had been learning could help him identify a half a dozen different tracks. Lorn kept the path as straight as an arrow though, and Ju never had the opportunity to go off hunting game. This was mainly due to the Old Law; they were allowed to hunt for food, but never for sport, and Ju knew deep down that he just wanted to hunt in order to try his arm against whatever was out there. Lorn probably realised this as well, Ju thought to himself as he trudged dejectedly up yet another snowy hill.

  The pace that Lorn set was tiring for both of them, but it paid off. It was not more than twelve days later that they crested a ridge to see the dark stain of the encampment before them. It spread as far as the eye could see, and Ju only now appreciated the number of mouths the hunters needed to feed. The camp was set in an almost wheel-like formation, with tents at the centre, large camp fires at equal distances from there, and herds surrounding that. The camp was large, but it was easy to see that one would never have a problem crossing from one area to another because it was so orderly. A wide track could be seen to the south, evidence of where the camp had moved. The nomads were bound to follow the herds across the steppes as they foraged for food, following the same pattern throughout the year. Ju realised that it was not too hard to learn where they would be. “Shall we?” Lorn asked, and Ju realised that his gawking was costing them time.

  “I'm sorry,” he said. “It was just that I had never seen it like that before. It is like a giant wheel.”

  Lorn nodded. “I was much the same when first I travelled back to the camp, when I left I was so homesick I dared not look back. But from here one can appreciate the formation. At no point is any one member of the tribe more than a brief walk from food and shelter, and should the need rise, a weapon.” Lorn explained more about the camp as they walked back towards its outermost boundaries. Things Ju would never have dreamed about asking cropped up, such as how the herds were protected and restrained, and yet allowed to dictate the path of the ever-wandering tribe. They passed solitary guards, keeping an eye on the herds, and received brief nods. In a climate such as this, you could lose heat just from even opening your mouth, so economy of movement was of paramount importance for the figures out here, so far removed from the general warmth of the camp.

  Lorn directed them towards the nearest fire, where a member of the tribe, who turned out to be in charge of stores, greeted him warmly. Upon hearing of Ju's success, he embraced the boy, and presented him with a thick bowl of steaming stew in return for his share of the goods brought with them. Ju felt a blessed relief at ridding himself of such a load, and once it was gone, he felt as light as a feather; his feet barely touching the ground as he walked.

  “Another reason for the fires being as they are,” explained Lorn around a mouthful of stew and bread, “is that hunters bring provisions from every direction.”

  “Such as the fish,” Ju replied, recalling the event that had brought them to know the fisherman.

  Lorn nodded in agreement. “Exactly. It just happened that we came in from the North. Others may be returning even now from a different direction. It is the way we maintain our food levels.”

  “Okay, but what if the supplies run out. What if this was the only thing left?

  Lorn chuckled. “That's a lot of 'what ifs' there, young hunter. The number of people you see here is the majority of us, but there are many, many more spread out over the region. It would take a disaster of God-like proportions to reduce us to culling the herds.”

  Ju just quietly nodded and looked around him, impressed with Lorn's confidence, but with a wary feeling that nothing ever went as planned.

  They passed through the various areas of the encampment until they reached a forest of tents that served as living quarters for the tribe. Without warning, several men and women formed up around the two travellers in what appeared to Ju to be some sort of escort. Lorn led them unerringly towards the centre complex of tents that housed the elders and chiefs. It worried Ju that an escort was needed. What had gone wrong since they had left that warranted such special attention. He tried to catch Lorn's attention with a sidelong look, but the young man just looked straight ahead, his face betraying no emotion.

  The path opened out into a wider space, free of any tents, and Ju found himself looking at Lorn's father, and several other elders, who nodded a welcome. The chief held a longbow that was so huge it would have taken two men to wield it. He held it aloft reverently, and called out in a strong voice to those around him. “We gather in this place to celebrate the passage from child to adult. As long has been the custom, one of the methods of passage has been tested, and the testing has passed.”

  He hefted the bow. “It is my honour as elder hunter to bestow the name of adulthood upon Juatin. Let it be known that his adult name while in this place is Juatin Hawk-Eye, in memory of his testing.”

  The gathered crowd remained silent. The chief held the bow out to Ju, implying with a look that he should take the weapon. “Take it, and raise it aloft,” Juatin heard Lorn whisper from behind him.

  He stepped forward, and grasped the huge longbow by the grip. It was too tall for any man there to wield, so he held it with both hands, letting the wood cradle in his arms. It was so heavy he feared dropping it, and by chance lifted it aloft when he overbalanced. The gathered crowd cheered as he did so, and he realised he had unwittingly done the exact thing that they had been waiting for. Flushed with pride and more than a tinge of embarrassment at being the focus of such great attention, Juatin held the bow out in the direction of the chief, praying silently that the old man would take it back off of him.

  Lorn's father duly did so, passing it on to another elder. As the crowd continued cheering, Ju said in a rather quiet voice, “I hope I can stick with the bow I have,” bringing a hearty laugh from all who heard him.

  “All hail our newest hunter, and most probably our youngest!” the old man shouted aloud. The gathering responded solemnly, “Hail.”

  This signalled the end of the presentation, and the crowd began to disperse, back to their various chores. Ju looked around to find himself alone with Lorn, and the elders. Lorn's father smiled kindly at the boy, and inclined his head. “Come, we will eat,” he said, and turned into the complex of tents that belonged to the elders. A large table had been set up in the centre of what could only be described as a pavilion. It was covered in the biggest selection of food Ju had seen since travelling North from his village.

  His mouth began to water as he inhaled the spices and sweet aromas, and then he remembered that for everybody present this was a rare thing. He sat down, and patiently waited. The old man noted this, and grunted in approval. “Your patience does you credit, young man. It is clear that my son has been teaching you of our values, and teaching you well.”

  Ju looked at Lorn, who was beaming with pride at his father's comments, and doing a terrible job of masking the fact. This was not lost upon the old man, who seemed to take everything in at once. “But do not hesitate,” he continued. “This feast has been prepared in your honour, and you need not hold back. All I ask of you is that you tell us about the shot that took the doe, for it is spreading as quite a tale.”

  Ju heaped food upon a platter, and set too it like a man starved for weeks. He was growing quickly, and had been consistently hungry for months. For once, he was going to feel unpleasantly full.

  The meal lasted a while, and Ju duly repeated all that had happened to him for yet another audience, with Lorn adding his own
observations along the way. The old men marvelled at the shot he had made, but there was something about their eyes that made Ju think he was here for another reason, and it left him feeling uncertain. People came and went, moving platters of food around, replacing empty trays with full, and he found himself repeating the tale to a whole different group of people before he even realised what was happening.

  Feeling full, but still after just one more bite, Ju excused himself and went around the table looking for a morsel of food. He was in the process of filling his place when a tall figure with long dark hair ducked into the room. Tarim's eyes sought him out, and a visible look of relief passed over his face as he found him. Ju was overjoyed, and dashed over to him, only to be caught in a bear hug from the man he considered to be the father he had never had.

  After a brief moment, Tarim dropped Ju to his feet. “It is good to have you back,” he said, ever brief.

  “It is good to be back.” Ju admitted, glad to see a face he recognised, despite all the attention he had been receiving. “Where is Zya?”

  “Around somewhere, learning some new skill I am sure,” Tarim replied ambiguously. “She wants to talk to you most urgently, but she was told in no uncertain terms that everything that has transpired today could not be avoided. Tradition means a lot to the tribe, and every boy who has passed to manhood as a hunter has been given a celebration in honour of their achievements.”

  Ju looked around at the food. He had become so caught up in the festivity of the occasion that he had forgotten exactly that. He wanted to speak to Zya; needed to speak to her in fact, but he realised that there was something else he needed to do first. He walked over and stood before the chief, and then bowed. “Thank you for the bounty you have presented me with, honoured elder,” said Ju, remembering something Lorn had mentioned during one of their long conversations in the ice-house.

  The old man's face lit up with sheer delight. “Marvellous boy,” he commented amidst a chuckle. Ju grinned impishly and nodded, then walked over to where Tarim and Lorn stood. As they left, Ju heard the old man call, “Fare you well, young hunter,” and he wondered what that meant, for they were not going any place soon, or so he believed.

  Strolling through the encampment, they swapped stories about the various events that had occurred while they had been apart. Tarim had been showing the craftsmen a thing or two about carpentry, and some of the more innovative of them had actually picked up an idea or two.

  When Ju enquired of Zya, Tarim simply shook his head, answering “She only came out of that tent this morning.”

  Ju was quite surprised, but Lorn looked incredibly thoughtful upon hearing this. “This means one of two things, from what I have heard of the seers: that she is incredibly strong-willed, or incredibly gifted.” Lorn stopped and addressed Tarim. “How did she look when she came to you?”

  “Calm, but there was something about her, as if something urgent needed to be done, but there was no way she could do it.”

  Lorn smiled. “That is a lot to read from a face.”

  Tarim shrugged slightly. “I know my own daughter. She wants to soothe all the world's ills, and she wants to do it yesterday, but there was definitely something different about her. We will see soon enough.”

  They walked in the direction of a series of conical tents; all similar in size and shape to the one Zya had entered.

  “She has a tent here?” asked Lorn.

  Tarim only nodded, an economical movement that barely shifted the hair down his back. “When I saw her, all she asked was that I brought Ju to her at this place as soon as he was free.”

  Lorn nodded in agreement, while Ju scuffed at a stone on the track. “Even the seers cannot intrude upon the rites of passage. It sounds like Zya has had a different experience, but one that is just as important in the scheme of things.”

  Tarim stopped. “What do you mean?”

  Lorn started walking again. “It is not just the men who have a rite of passage. I do not know much about it, but I believe that Zya's time in presence of her tutor was for something more profound than conversation.”

  They approached the tents and Tarim politely enquired of an old woman as to the whereabouts of his daughter. The woman, dressed in the dun clothing and shawl that seemed to be almost a uniform amongst the elders of the tribe, pointed silently to a hill that rose in the distance.

  As they turned to look, she spoke quietly, not much more than a whisper. “Your daughter climbed the hill, friend. Should you need to speak with her, then follow her up.”

  Tarim nodded his thanks to the woman, who smiled at each of them, with a small nod for Lorn. They made their way back out of the camp, in a different direction to the way Ju and Lorn had entered. This time they were headed East.

  The path to the hill was clear, and the sun had barely shifted a quarter of the way across its path through the heavens by the time they reached the top. Ju looked back to once again see the wheel formation that was so characteristic of the steppes tribes, and then looked to the East. The land was without any marking or deviant at all. It stretched as far as the eye could see, a mixture of ice and grass. To the South, the huge mountain range sprang into existence, the very spine of the world they lived in, so the tribesmen said.

  Ju looked around for Zya, but did not see her. “Where is she then?” he asked of the others.

  “Let us spread out,” Tarim answered.”

  Without further comment they did so, going in separate directions. Ju went South, over the crest of the hill, while the others moved to the North. He was looking at the spine of mountains when he felt his feet slip out from beneath him. Suddenly, he was slipping down a slope of crumbly dirt. He reached out and grabbed frantically at the ledge above him, but before he could grab anything, his feet touched the ground. Looking around, a little startled by the slip, Ju found himself in a steep gully that opened out onto a grassy plateau that was protected from the heat-sapping wind by the very slope he had stumbled down.

  Knelt in the plateau, her legs folded under her and her eyes closed in meditation, was Zya. Ju watched her for a few moments in her serene poise. A calm exterior turned to a smile as Zya spoke without opening her eyes, “I know you are there little brother.” The she rose gracefully, and came over to him.

  “I have missed you,” he said simply, at a loss for anything else to say.

  She smiled. “And I you.” Then Zya caught him in a fierce hug. “You cannot believe how much I have missed you.” Pushing him back at arm's length she looked at him critically. “But now is not the time. I have things that must be said, things, which only we can talk about. You know of what I speak, don't you?”

  Ju nodded dumbly. “I had a dream,” he said. “You were there, but we could not speak. There was something else there too, a boy who turned into a monster.”

  “Ju, I had that very same dream,” Zya answered, leaving him dumbfounded. She turned and sat on the grass, facing the scuddy stain of mountains to the South east, and for a moment was silent. The wind continued its scouring of the land above and around them, but somehow all that Ju felt was calm, as if they were in a bubble, protected from the wind by ties between them that nobody could understand but they.

  “This has something to do with things that you have been taught?” he asked “Things that I have learned, yes,” Zya countered. “There were plenty of things taught to me, things that opened my mind, routines that calmed it and cantrips that made me aware of so much more than most could comprehend. But there were which I learned as a result. One is that we are linked somehow, perhaps by this.”

  With a flick of her wrist, Zya produced the dagger her father had unwittingly given her back on the road to Hoebridge, Ju's home. At the sight of the dagger, Ju suddenly felt more aware of his surroundings, his sight sharper, as if he were concentrating on firing an arrow. “The weapons?”

  Zya nodded. “There is something about them, something that even father does not know, something that my teacher could not fathom. Whatev
er it is has led us to share experiences, and had taught me a better understanding of the world.” Zya looked away, towards the distant mountains.

  “I knew that there was an evil spreading over the land, and since I have returned from the tent you left me in, I have gained a much sharper perception of events happening around me. I can feel the evil spreading even now. It comes from there.” Zya pointed towards the tip of the mountain chain. “That is a place from which we must flee, for now.”

  This was all new to Ju, and he could not absorb it all, and sat there, trying to understand. “Where to?”

  “To the West. To the coast.”

  Ju looked crestfallen. “But that will mean leaving the tribe.”

  Zya looked over at him, full of emotion. “Ju, my little hunter, don't worry yourself. We live as we can, making do. Maybe we will return, I do not know. What I can tell you is that the elder who taught me told me that dreams that make the seers what they are come unbidden, and always have meaning. You have shared my dream, or maybe it was who shared yours. They count me as a seer, but one thing that I learned was that I think you also are a seer. I think the dream we had manifested itself as a result of both of us.”

  That surprised Ju as much as anything Zya had just told him. “Well…if we find ourselves on a stony plateau with a mirror in front of us, I am not shouting 'I love you' even if my feet are on fire!”

  With that they both laughed, and after they talked about small things such as the tribe and Ju's hunting success. Tarim and Lorn rounded the hill from below them and found them talking quietly. When Zya repeated to her father what she had said to Ju, he nodded, understanding that his daughter's feelings were somehow very strong. Lorn however looked slightly abashed, and not a little upset at the fact that they were intending to leave.