Songs Of Harmony

by Andrew Elgin

  "Sweetwater. Yes, there'll be one there. For certain." Torrint gazed down at Javin. "This was always going to be uncertain. Too small for a good healer to stay at. But it was on the way to Sweetwater." He turned back to the wagon. "A few days yet, but we'll be there soon enough. Now, if you'll get Kesit and Kasser, we'll get ourselves going."

  "We're leaving now?"

  Torrint nodded but continued packing. "Start clean and clear and leave in the same way. We stay overnight in a place this small, we look desperate and they look to take advantage. So we leave and anyone who missed us won't miss us next time through here." He turned finally and leaned on the wagon. "We did well enough. And so did they. So it's time to go." And he nodded Javin towards the mandria.

  Much later, under a sky full of stars and the bright moon, the three of them ate a third of the fresh bread and some dried meat and fruit. Apparently, cooking every night was just too much trouble. Even though Javin knew where Red River was, he could not spot it now. There were no lights shining, no sounds of machinery, no hustle of people. There was only the silence. It was beginning to sound normal.

  The next morning neither Torrint nor Banith were in the mood to rush, so Javin found himself the only one awake and alert. He hadn't slept well, being bothered with too many thoughts about what life would be like without memories.

  As it was, the sun was bright and warmth was creeping into the air as Javin found himself a stub of bread and some fruit, the latter edging towards staleness now. He gazed off into the distance where the vague marks of passage indicated a track, but could see nothing. Giving up, he wandered off a few paces to a rounded rock, just the right height and size for lying back on and watching clouds, which is what he did as he chewed his breakfast.

  He wondered, again, what Sharna could have meant by Harmony helping him. However he mulled it over in his mind, it made little to no sense. Giving up, he let himself gaze into the sky, eyes half-closed, enjoying doing nothing. His mind, however, kept wanting to do something. And so he found himself wondering about the mandria and what they thought of it all, assuming they had thoughts. He supposed it was a good life for them. They weren't rushed, always had good grazing and were looked after. He thought back to tending the ones at Hanlar's and how much he had looked forward to that at the end of the day.

  He thought about grooming them now and lifted his head to locate them. They were idly munching on some sort of shrub a short distance away. Stretching out again, he let his mind see them close up, see the lighter markings on Kesit's hide; a small pattern of paler stripes. He wondered if Kasser noticed them in the same way, and, as he thought that, so his vision blurred and then he was looking at Kesit, close up. Right there, in front of his eyes, the stripes stood out sharp and clear. Much clearer than he had thought. But it was too close. And a part of him knew he wasn't seeing this. He was looking up at the sky and seeing Kesit as if he was right beside him at the same time. A small, amazed part of Javin told himself that the two things could not be happening together. Yet they were.

  The surprise made him choke on a piece of bread and he sat up abruptly. As he did so, Kesit's hide vanished, to be replaced by the wagons. But seen from a distance.

  Javin's lungs didn't seem to know which was more surprising; the intrusion of the bread, or what he was seeing. He shook his head as he tried to breathe and looked to find the mandria again. As he did so, the distant view of the wagons vanished and he found himself looking at the mandria who had turned their heads to him, obviously attracted by the sound of his choking.

  Javin blinked and rubbed his eyes. He held them shut for a moment, but when he opened them again, the world was as it should be, the mandria were back to grazing again, and the last crumb was coughed up. Torrint looked over at him quizzically from the back of the wagon.

  "If you think you'll survive the day, we'd best make a start."

  Chapter Eleven

  The three of them, with the mandria grumbling their bass notes as an accompaniment, rumbled and creaked their way across the countryside. Javin had not said anything to the other two about the strange thing with his vision, and they had apparently not noticed anything to remark upon. So the first day was silent as usual. The wagon was never comfortable. There was no suspension, nothing to ease the bumps and roughness of the tracks they followed. Torrint had apparently become used to it, but, by the afternoon, Javin had had enough of an aching backside and sore lower back and got down to stretch his legs, Torrint nodding amiably at him as he jumped to the ground. As the mandria were steady but slow in their progress, it was very easy to keep pace with them, even to move ahead of them without too much effort. This Javin did.

  The act of walking somehow seemed to make it easier to think about his future, about the straw moving, the vision of the wagons through the eyes of the mandria, about his life in general and what was happening to him. All he knew for certain was that he was uncertain about virtually everything. He had no clear recollection of his early life, he had unexplained things happening around or to him, and it wasn't even clear if he could or would stay with Torrint. There was not even any certainty about being healed enough to have his memory back.

  And would he want them? This was not something he felt like talking about, assuming he could have a talk, that is. It was almost too personal for a conversation. He had to come to terms with it himself, in his own way. Nothing anyone on this planet could say to him would be of any use. Even the few others from Haven, if he met them, would not be able to help him understand his predicament any better. After all, he had been exiled in the most definite way possible. There must have been a very good reason for it. Perhaps he had been someone wholly unable to fit into society on Haven through anti-social tendencies. Had he been a murderer? But why exile a murderer? Perhaps he had been a holy man, made miracles happen (which would be ironic, given my present situation, he thought) and 'they' couldn't kill him because of their beliefs? Or had he been a terrorist, attacking the government? But, again, why not simply have him killed? There seemed to be no easy answer. But, even if the memories were bad, if he got them back, they would be his. His life would at least have a depth to it, even if it was not something he wanted to dive into.

  In the late afternoon, having walked out the aches but resolving nothing else, he waited for the wagon to catch up to him and clambered aboard. Torrint spat a stream of juice over the side to talk better. "Did it help any? The walking?"

  Javin smiled and shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe."

  "Decide anything?"

  "Only that I have no idea what my life was and what my life will be. I'm pretty much stuck here with no direction, nothing I can think of doing. I have to tell you, Torrint, it's a strange feeling."

  Torrint nodded and then hooked the wad of leaves out, throwing them away. He ran his tongue around his teeth searching for any stray fragments and spat again. "Sweetwater's big enough for you to have options. Even if there's no healer there or none that can help, you'll see what's possible. Might give you some ideas, at least."

  "So when do we get there?"

  Torrint pointed with his chin at the rough track they were following. "This will take us to Blackeye first. Smaller place on the way. People there came from Sweetwater originally. I suppose they didn't like to have too many people around. Anyway, we can trade there a little and then carry news to Sweetwater and then find your healer." He glanced across at Javin. "It will be two, three days after tomorrow to Blackeye. Then maybe two or three more to Sweetwater. That good enough for you?"

  Javin smiled back ruefully. "Would it make any difference if it wasn't?"

  It was Torrint's turn to smile, a rare occurrence. "No."

  "How small is this Blackeye place? Compared to, say, Red River?"

  "You could fit Blackeye in Red River and lose it, I reckon."

  "And it's called Blackeye because...?"

  Torrint obviously felt in an expansive, communicative mood. "You'll see for yourself. There's tall plants there. High as this
wagon. Pretty, too." He motioned with his hand, drawing as he spoke. "Lots of gold and white petals and in the middle, a black patch. That's where the seeds are. That's why they are called blackeyes and that's why the place is called Blackeye." Torrint was silent for a while. "Useful plant, the blackeye. Not many places where it grows well. This is one of them."

  Javin knew he was going to have to ask. It was Torrint's way. He never gave out a lot of information at once. But he was happy to play along. He waited for a few more turns of the wheels. "Useful in what way?"

  "As a glue. Powerful stuff. You need a lot of seeds and you soak 'em and pound on 'em, and what's left you mix with ash and then store it under water. We're out of it, and this is a good place to buy it."

  "Store it under water?"

  "Because as soon as the stuff dries, it sets. Hard. And I haven't heard of anything to loosen it when it does. Always get a good price for it. Always running out of it. People always want to stick things together."

  Javin pondered this for a moment. "How did anybody find out how to do that; the pounding and the ash and the water? And that would make the glue? How does that happen?"

  Torrint pushed out his lower lip. "Some things just happen, I guess."

  The next morning Javin tried again to repeat the vision with the mandria, but without success. As before, once they had set off, he had another walk after sitting in silence for a while. It allowed him to think as well as avoid the discomfort of the wagon seat. With neither Torrint nor Banith being great talkers, the silence was the same walking as riding for most of the day.

  He had taken to walking ahead of the wagons, following the slight indentations of the track with the occasional bare patches. For a lot of the time, he simply let his mind hop and skip, settle and stray wherever it wanted. Thus it was that he dipped into how he felt as he regained consciousness after his arrival, the look of disappointment on Tarla's face, how good Paysa's meals smelled, how the soil felt on his hands as he worked with Hanlar, the colors of the city he had last lived in, the smells, the sounds of it. A string of things. And, intertwined, the snatch of that annoyingly familiar tune. It arrived when he wasn't thinking about anything, but as soon as he tried to remember where it was from, it vanished quickly into silence. He sometimes found himself humming it before realizing he was hearing it in his head. He always seemed to come into the middle of it and leave before the end arrived.

  That night, after a cooked meal and with the moon looking down, the three of them sat gazing into the remains of the fire.

  "Do you really not remember anything before you came here?" Banith looked up from the leather strips he was braiding into a new bridle.

  "Oh, I can remember a great deal of what it was like. I can see the city and even recall the names of people I knew there. But," and he made a fist with his right hand and banged it into the palm of his left, "I keep hitting this wall. I can go back only so far. I'm not sure, but maybe two or three years and then no more. There's nothing there."

  "What's that like, having no memory? Is it like a blackness in your head, a blank, or what?"

  Javin considered for a moment how to explain it. "I'm not sure I can tell you. You have memories of your past, right?"

  Banith nodded, his hands continuing to work.

  "How do you know they are memories? Your memories?"

  Banith paused as he thought, his head cocked and eyes half-closed. "They have a feel to them. I know them because they feel right."

  Javin nodded. "Exactly. I can make things up, I can imagine things about my past, but none of them feel right. None of them are mine." He gestured out into the night. "When I'm walking, I try to remember my life. A lot of the time, I hope for things. I recall some things which happened to me, that I know happened to me, and then I add something else. My mother looked like someone I knew in the city. Or, I lived in a place I'd seen on a screen sometime." He dismissed Banith's quizzical look. "A screen? I can't explain it here. Something you can look at, see things in, but it's not a mirror. But the point is I know when I'm making things up, when I'm hoping, because none of them feel right.

  "It's the same problem you have explaining to me about how you and Harmony know each other. You can tell me things, but none of them make any sense to me. None of them feel right." He shifted his body slightly to a more comfortable position. "You and Harmony is like me and my lack of memory. I can't explain it to you and you can't explain it to me." He turned his gaze back to the fire and gave a slight sigh. "Maybe, one day, when I get my memory back, if I get it back, I'll finally get connected to Harmony." He looked up and smiled ruefully. "Maybe that's what the problem is. You can't connect with Harmony if you can't remember who you are."

  "Might be that it's the other way round." Torrint leaned forward a little, also gazing into the fire. "Might be that once you get to hear Harmony, you get your life back as well."

  "Maybe," Javin acknowledged. "Maybe."

  "One thing's for sure," Torrint continued. "It can't stay like this. Something will change. Either you and your memory, or you and Harmony. Nothing stays the same." He stood and stretched. "And I think something is going to happen soon." He turned to his wagon and clambered in.

  "Does he know something I don't?" asked Javin after a moment.

  Banish shrugged. "Maybe. Prediction isn't his talent. He can see ahead a little, but he's talking about a feeling.Call it a sense, a premonition." He grinned. "You don't have to have a talent for that. Everyone can have a premonition. You just have to let them come to you. Anyway, if he's right or if he's wrong, we'll know soon enough."

  "How soon is soon?"

  Banith thought for a moment, his eyelids drooping, an inner silence. Then he looked across at Javin. "I'd say by the time we hit Sweetwater. If not before." He stood up. "And you have been here more than long enough without things happening, haven't you?" He looked up at the moon as if an answer were there. "Yes. I think he's probably right. Something's going to happen. A change is coming." He looked down at Javin still seated on the ground. "We just don't know what it is. That's all."

  The next two days, before they arrived at Blackeye, Javin spent most of the time walking, letting his mind drift, hearing snatches of music and feeling frustrated. If this connection with Harmony was going to happen, he still had no idea how that would change anything. So he could 'hear' a planet? What good would that do? As far as he could tell, from everyone he had met so far, people were still people, just a little more weird. But was that due only to this strange connection? Or were they normally strange? Would he, then, in turn, become strange as well? And how would he tell? A labyrinth of thinking, except that his labyrinth only came to a dead end. There was no way out it, no conclusion.

  He had no new visions about the mandria, not even when he was grooming them. Nothing unusual happened, despite what Torrint might have felt. He was still without a past and without an idea about the future. Maybe Sweetwater would have an answer for him. Maybe. Everything was a 'maybe'.

  They had traveled through some low-lying hills with boulders of a dark grey color with whiter streaks in it, forming irregular mounds as if they were bursting from the ground, reaching upwards from beneath the earth. As they progressed, the space between these mounds lessened. Torrint called Javin back to the wagon around midday.

  "Best sit up here for a while. These rocks, they can have cats in them."

  "Cats?"

  Torrint raised a cautionary eyebrow. "Numbugs on the carcass that time?"

  "Oh! Cats! Right. Thanks."

  "I don't look ahead all the time. Just know when to be safe." He paused, as usual. "We go round these hills and then we'll camp tonight. It'll take a time, but the rocks end soon enough. Not that cats are going to bother the beasts. Tomorrow, we'll be in Blackeye. Not long. A morning going between two hills where it opens into a small valley. That's Blackeye. A day there, then two days and Sweetwater after that."

  "Do you remember all the countryside you pass through?"

  Torr
int shook his head. "I remember what I need to. I know when I'm going the right way. Plus, there's usually a track." He pointed ahead of them. "This one's faint, but easy enough to follow. When there's been a rain that can wash it away, that's when memory helps."

  "But it's just countryside," Javin protested. "Hills and plants and things. It all looks the same to me."

  Torrint wrinkled his nose. "Seems that you don't see things I see." He stuffed a new leaf into his mouth, a sure sign of an end to a conversation. Javin resigned himself to trying to see what it was Torrint saw. But, no matter how long he stared, it was just a jumble of hills and vegetation and rocks and nothing else. There was also that annoying tune, fading in and out.

  That night, after their cold meal of stale bread, dried meat washed down with water, Torrint appeared to be lost in thought. At least, more than usual. He frowned and shifted uncomfortably for a while before shaking his head as if in disbelief.

  Banish, still working on the bridle, noticed. "What is it?"

  "Something's wrong ahead. Beasts not cared for. Fruit rotting on trees. Sheds needing repair. Doesn't look good. Doesn't feel good." Seeing Javin's expression Torrint said, "I'm an eye remember? And I can see less than a day ahead. And I don't like what I see here." He shook his head again. "This does not feel good. Not at all. And any questions you might have right now, Javin, they can wait."

  Torrint's unease spread and even the mandria kept up an unusual and steady deep rumbling undercurrent of sound through the night. To Javin, it felt like his whole body and mind were on edge, but with no obvious reason. He wanted to ask questions, but Torrint looked in no mood. He had already made that quite clear. Banith obviously trusted what Torrint had said. He tried, at first, to carry on with the bridle, but finally put it down and stood by the wagon, staring out ahead, wanting to see Blackeye and the cause for Torrint's unease. Nobody slept well or long and the wagons were ready to roll at first light.