A Solitary Journey

by Tony Shillitoe

  Meg blushed again, caught her breath and asked in a rush, ‘What is going to happen to me here? Where is Magpie? Where are the others? Where’s Wombat?’

  ‘Sh,’ said Ah-tee-wana-see, ‘too many questions, child. Too many questions.’

  ‘I want to know,’ Meg insisted.

  ‘Your son is well,’ the old woman reassured. ‘He is strong and stubborn, and that will be good for him in the long run. But it will be hard on him until he learns that he is not the most important one in the world.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Chi-hway has him working,’ the old woman said. ‘He is a good man, my grandson. He chose well when he chose to keep you and your son.’

  ‘Keep?’ Meg asked.

  The old woman nodded. ‘You belong to Chi-hway. It is his right as the—your people would call him the headman of the wah—the village. We call him ahtim. It’s his title, his rank here. It was his right to choose you.’

  ‘You mean we’re prisoners,’ Meg accused.

  The old woman shrugged. ‘That is a way of seeing it. This is not your land. You come uninvited. But we offer you shelter and food and life. In exchange you give us work.’

  ‘What if we don’t want to stay here?’

  ‘It’s forbidden for foreigners to wander Shesskar-sharel without permission. If you don’t wish to stay here, then you must go back over the mountains to your homes.’

  ‘If we go back the Kerwyn will kill us.’

  The old woman sighed and gently placed her wrinkled brown hand on Meg’s arm. ‘We’ve heard of your war. These men who come from the north want your land and they have taken it. There is nothing you can do. Perhaps they will fall to sumo-nae one day—when the cycle turns—but for now it is you who has fallen. Be grateful you’ve fallen softly. Being kept by my grandson is a good fate in your circumstances.’

  Meg realised there was no point protesting. The old woman’s expression was set, but it was absent of malice. ‘And the others?’ she asked.

  ‘The men have divided them. They will work as you will work. When they have learned to accept their new lives and be happy you will see them in the village. The wise accept quickly. The unwise bring unnecessary pain on themselves.’ She paused to study Meg’s face, before adding, ‘I think you will be wise.’

  ‘And Wombat?’

  The old woman shook her head as if she was growing weary of the questions, but she replied, ‘The big man will work hard. Ka-sa-tem is his keeper.’

  The soft crunch of a foot on the earth stopped Ah- tee-wana-see and the women turned to see Chi-hway’s tall frame enter the room. He spoke quietly to Ah-tee- wana-see, stealing a cautious glance at Meg.

  The old woman replied to him, and looked back at Meg, saying, ‘Your pain has only just begun, child. When you are ready we will talk of what broke your heart this morning. Great grief moves slowly and it will hurt for a long time, but it will heal.’ She patted Meg’s thigh. ‘Go with my grandson. He will not push you harder than you can work for now. When your pain is healed, he will work you harder, but he will never be unkind.’

  Meg looked up at the tall man whose dark eyes watched her silently, wondering what he would do if he knew what she really was.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The ache in her heart lingered. In the evenings she cried herself to sleep, her body racked with deep sobs over which she had no control and her dreams were detailed, long memories of events that embraced her family. Always the dreams ended with her children being killed or vanishing, her husband a bloated corpse beside her brothers, her mother staring sadly as she clutched a boy—her boy—to her breast. In the mornings before sunrise she woke from the dreams, empty and drowning in sorrow, and her waking thoughts were overwhelmed with images of her children, her life—so overwhelmed that she struggled to concentrate on the work she was set to do. The food she cooked for Chi-hway and Magpie she couldn’t eat and her desire to live faded with her desire to eat. She worked slowly, sometimes incompetently, and Chi-hway was angry with her, though he wasn’t loud or violent. It didn’t matter to her what he thought. He was a dream. The world she’d lost was the only reality she wanted. Without her children there was no reason to live and her depression pressed down like the sacks of grain she carried into Chi-hway’s kitchen.

  Sometimes her family dreams were interspersed with other dreams—familiar dreams—dreams of a voice that begged her to build a portal. Why don’t you come? the voice asked.

  Because I can’t, she replied.

  But you know how to.

  I don’t want to.

  Come and I will help you, the voice promised.

  Help me with what?

  I can save you from him.

  I only want my children saved, she told the voice.

  Then set me free, and I will save them too.

  She knew how to build the portal. The memories flowed back—and with them she remembered stranger things. She remembered the Demon Horsemen and what she had done as Lady Amber. And she remembered why she ran from her magic—why she had a family—why she tried to forget so much. Set me free and I can save you, the voice promised, but she didn’t care for herself. Yet if the voice could save her children, there was a reason to set him free. There was a reason to make the portal. But every morning that she tried to remember the portal the darker sorrow overwhelmed her and she could do nothing for herself, only slavishly follow Chi-hway’s orders. She carried, she cooked, and she cleaned. Every evening she thought about opening the portal, but she saw the images of her children when she began to concentrate and wept instead.

  Magpie was the only distraction that buoyed her spirits and drove out the darkness. The boy came to the breakfasts she prepared and told her what Chi-hway made him do. ‘He lets me use the axe, Meg. I cut the wood now,’ he told her on the third day in the village. ‘Today I think he’s showing me how to fish. I tried to tell him I can already do that, but he doesn’t seem to understand me and I don’t get what he’s saying either. How long are we staying here?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ was her answer.

  ‘I like it,’ Magpie went on, ‘but I wish they weren’t so mean to Wombat.’

  Meg put down her bowl. ‘How are they being mean?’

  ‘They keep him with chains around his ankles, like an animal, and make him pull carts. I saw it yesterday afternoon. He looked really unhappy. I saw Glitter too. She was washing clothes. She smiled when she saw me, but Chi-hway wouldn’t let me speak to her.’

  ‘Have you seen Ochre?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘No.’ Magpie finished his eggs and said as he rose, ‘Can we stay here?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said quietly. The boy grinned and left the kitchen. Meg guessed that he didn’t realise the truth—that he was a slave and that he didn’t have a choice about leaving—but he was happy in his ignorance and she lacked the strength or desire to tell him otherwise.

  A deeper voice addressed Magpie outside before Chi-hway entered the kitchen and sat in expectation of his breakfast. His dark eyes watched Meg as she served the bread and eggs and sliced meat, but her mind was wandering through a kitchen in Summerbrook—until Chi-hway grabbed her wrist as she went to return to the hearth. He spoke and his words took form when she focussed. ‘I wish I knew why you were so troubled, woman-of-the-flame-hair.’ The last phrase took the form she recognised as a name with which he had christened her in his tongue—Sha-emen-sa-char. She met his gaze and read in his face the concern in his words. ‘What can I do to take away the pain?’ She almost answered his question, but caught herself and looked down instead at his hand enfolding her wrist. He saw her gaze and kept his grip a moment before he let her hand fall away from his, his disappointment almost audible when he turned to his meal and ate in silence while she continued her work.

  Ah-tee-wana-see visited on the fourth morning, after Chi-hway led Magpie to work and learn. The old woman entered, smiling, and inspected the kitchen, stopping to taste Meg
’s breakfast leftovers. Then she addressed Meg with, ‘Good morning, Sha-emen-sa-char, ’ using Chi-hway’s name for her as if it was common knowledge, while she assessed Meg’s appearance. ‘You’re not eating.’

  ‘No,’ Meg replied sullenly.

  ‘Interesting,’ Ah-tee-wana-see mused. ‘And why are you not eating, child?’

  Meg didn’t answer, but when she looked up she saw that Ah-tee-wana-see was staring at her with a mixture of curiosity and surprise. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

  ‘Because I’m talking in my language and you answered in it.’

  Meg caught her breath. What had she done? In her native language she said, ‘You’re trying to trick me.’

  ‘I’ve already tricked you,’ the old woman replied in her Shesskar tongue and chuckled. ‘My grandson said that he thought you understood more than he expected, so I came to find the truth. And you are definitely more than you pretend, Sha-emen-sa-char. How did you learn our tongue?’

  What answer could she give? ‘I—there was a man who came to our village when I was small. He stayed and we learned from him,’ she improvised.

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘I forget,’ she blustered, and added, ‘no—it was—it was Chi-raman. He called himself the Travelling Man.’

  ‘And he taught you how to speak his language?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Ah-tee-wana-see shook her head, smiling wanly. ‘You must have much to hide to have so much sorrow and to tell such lies, child. I truly am sorry for you.’

  Meg’s guilt blossomed. Why did I lie to her? She lowered her head and avoided the old woman’s eyes, her shame overwhelming her.

  ‘When you need to tell the truth, send for me,’ Ah- tee-wana-see said as she touched Meg’s shoulder kindly. Meg looked up. ‘Sorrow makes us hide things we should not hide,’ the old woman cautioned. ‘An open heart will always be listened to.’ She went to the door, stopped, and added, ‘Tomorrow I will visit and eat with you after my grandson and your son have eaten. I will listen if you want to talk.’ And she left. Meg felt hollow. She cried much of the morning, huddled in the kitchen corner against the firewood, wrapped in her own arms.

  ‘Chuuk—that means axe,’ explained Magpie excitedly, ‘and their word for fishing is nashah.’ He stuffed another spoonful of gruel into his mouth and chewed, trying to speak at the same time. ‘I can say “I am hunting wildcat” too. Listen.’ He swallowed a portion of the food and said, ‘Ke sar oofla rekar! How’s that?’

  ‘You’re learning quickly,’ Meg told the boy, with a quick glance at Chi-hway who was nodding approval. ‘But why learn that phrase?’

  ‘Because that’s what we’re going to do this afternoon,’ Magpie replied eagerly.

  ‘Hunting a wildcat?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘What’s a wildcat?’

  Magpie bit a chunk of bread and chewed in the pocket of his cheek as he answered. ‘You know—that creature that attacked us in the mountains—the one with the weird yellow eyes.’

  Meg’s eyes widened and she looked at Chi-hway as she said to Magpie, ‘You can’t do that. It’s too dangerous.’

  ‘No it’s not. It’ll be fun. Chi-hway is letting me carry his spears.’

  ‘He’s hunting on his own?’

  ‘No. There’ll be others.’

  Meg glared at Chi-hway, who met her gaze with calm indifference. ‘He is a boy,’ she said in Shesskar and she saw his eyebrow rise slightly. ‘He is too young to hunt dangerous animals.’

  Magpie’s jaw dropped at the sound of Meg speaking the strange tongue fluently, although he had no idea what she was saying.

  ‘The boy is ripe to become a man,’ Chi-hway replied quietly in his deep tone. ‘I will teach him how to face danger with courage.’

  ‘Courage isn’t enough,’ she protested.

  ‘No,’ said Chi-hway, a faint smile on his lips, ‘courage is not enough. He has many skills yet to learn before he can hunt a wildcat alone, but courage is essential before these skills. A man without courage has no heart desire, and without desire there is nothing.’

  Meg wanted to argue, but Chi-hway rose from his chair, indicating Magpie should follow him and that the discussion was ended. Magpie stared at Meg as he swallowed his last mouthful and dutifully obeyed Chi- hway’s direction. She knew he wanted to ask her how she knew the language, but she dismissed him with a brief smile before she set to clearing the table, letting the man and boy leave the kitchen.

  She was angry at Chi-hway. He had no right to take the boy on a dangerous hunting trip. She was the boy’s protector—he’d chosen her in the absence of his mother. Or was she jealous that Magpie was happy? The boy was learning—he was excited about his unexpected new life in a strange land, being made into a warrior and hunter by Chi-hway—and she envied his joy. Her brothers would have been the same—if they had been in Magpie’s place. She choked at the thought, and steeled herself against the impending grief the memories rekindled. I will not cry, she insisted. I’m done with crying.

  Feet scuffing the earthen floor heralded Ah-tee-wana- see’s entrance, carrying a small steaming tureen. ‘Now you will sit and eat,’ the old woman ordered in her Shesskar language as she placed the green pottery tureen on the wooden tabletop.

  ‘I have to clean up,’ Meg argued.

  ‘After you have eaten, child,’ Ah-tee-wana-see insisted as she rummaged among the implements for a bowl, a spoon and a ladle, ‘and no more pretence of not speaking Shesskar. No more lies.’

  Although she had no desire to eat, Meg acquiesced and sat as Ah-tee-wana-see scooped the contents of the tureen into a chipped ochre-red bowl. The aroma assailed her immediately and she suddenly felt her stomach twinge as her mouth salivated. ‘We call this amcha. You would call it a stew, I think. It’s good for refortifying the body and the heart. Eat.’

  I don’t want to eat, Meg reasoned, but her body rebelled and she gave in to its demand, savouring the flavours and texture of the first food to pass her lips since the broth she’d scoffed in Ah-tee-wana-see’s care. She ate until the bowl was empty.

  ‘You can have more when that is settled,’ said Ah- tee-wana-see, a smile of satisfaction lighting her face. ‘It seems we’ve been here before,’ she added and chuckled. Memories blinked in Meg’s head. Ah-tee-wana-see reminded her of someone else, someone who’d been important to her. A face and a name connected—Emma. ‘It is time to unburden your heart, child,’ Ah- tee-wana-see said compassionately. ‘Grief locked away grows like the dark death that eats from within.’

  The old woman’s wisdom melded with Emma’s image and Meg found the tears rising against her will. I’m tired of crying, she protested, I have nothing left to cry, but the tears came and she gave in, Ah-tee-wana- see’s arms enveloping her as a mother would her child.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Creating the portal sapped her energy, but she felt renewed when the blue haze shimmered between the poles. She listened to the night world beyond her room, heard a dog bark twice in the silence, and was satisfied the village was sleeping. The days since her first portal experiment had ebbed and flowed through emotional turmoil and periods of work, time measured in tears and depression as her memories of family sparked and faded, until she felt as if she had no more tears left within to cry ever again. Her world was dead—crushed under the brutal Kerwyn horde that had sacked and burned her home and slaughtered her husband, her brothers, her mother, her—she swallowed and her lip trembled—her children. The kitchen aromas had reawakened all of her family memories. She knew who she was—who she’d been—and Ah-tee-wana-see had given her permission with her kindness to weep freely and to talk through her losses—to at least be herself in her grief. She told the old woman what she remembered about her family, her life in Summerbrook, and the people to whom she knew she had been close. She told Ah-tee-wana-see, when the old woman pressed for an explanation as to why she could understand Shesskar as well as her own Shessian language, that she was blessed with t
he ability to understand others and believed that it was a gift from Jarudha.

  ‘Whitedog Hunter told me about your god,’ said Ah- tee-wana-see, ‘but he said that only the ones in the cities follow the teachings and that the priests are mad.’

  ‘I don’t know the truth,’ Meg replied. ‘I just know that I have this ability and people told me that it was a Blessing.’

  Ah-tee-wana-see smiled and nodded. ‘In Shesskar-sharel we would say that you have a talent. My people long ago rejected the notion of gods and a spiritual universe. We see the world as it is and we see ourselves in it as we are. Some are born with more talent than others, some develop their talents as they grow—all of us have different talents.’

  What Meg did not share was that she could conjure magic. She didn’t know how Ah-tee-wana-see would respond to her if she admitted that her Blessing was stranger and greater than simply translating at will. She said nothing about her memories associated with her life as Lady Amber, much of which still eluded her, and the pieces that did come to mind were dark and bitter memories. She would deal with that another time, when she resolved the loss of her children.

  Ironically, not Ah-tee-wana-see but Chi-hway rekindled her desire to construct the portal. His words to her when he justified taking Magpie hunting—‘A man without courage has no heart desire, and without desire there is nothing’—twisted into her mind until she believed that the only hope she had of retrieving her children was to have the courage to enter the portal and release the owner of the voice that came to her in her dreams. He said that he could help her save her children. He was her hope.

  She flinched at faint rustling in the straw in the corner of her shelter. With a flick of her wrist a tiny glowing sphere appeared in her hand and she angled its light towards the corner. A black rat sat up, dark eyes glittering. ‘Shoo!’ she hissed. The rat slid through a gap in the wood, but a memory lingered in its place. Whisper? Meg wondered. She’d seen the rat before—at her village, at the river, in the forest. The rat’s presence invoked another relationship she’d forgotten. ‘Whisper,’ she said quietly, staring at the gap in the wall. A black nose appeared, twitching. ‘Whisper,’ she crooned. The nose was followed by the rest of the rat and the little creature sat on its haunches, staring at her. She held out a hand and said, ‘Come on.’ The rat scampered across the straw and climbed onto her palm. ‘You’re heavy,’ Meg complained as she raised the animal to eye level and studied the sleek fur. ‘Did you follow me all the way from Summerbrook?’ The idea was absurd, she decided, looking at the little animal’s healthy condition—but how else could her pet rat be here in The Valley of Kings? Holding the rat, memories flickered through her mind of an old man—Samuel; an old woman—Emma; a dingo—Sunfire; scattered fragments and faces. She saw her children playing with the rat. She saw her children. Her knees weakened and she sank into the straw, letting the little creature slip from her hand. There were no tears left to cry, but sorrow still racked her body, leaving her convulsing for a long time. As much as she tried, Ah-tee-wana-see could not lessen the pain.