“You are presumptuous, Benedict Limmetrad,” the middle Sachem said. “You do not understand our ways. You do not know our people. Do not dishonor us with your naivety. Silence to the Orks is not a matter of indifference as it is to your people. It is our most sincere form of communication. Words are a barrier to truth. To be Sachem is to have complete congruence with the body and mind. The movements and expressions of the body speak and listen for us. There is no meaning misinterpreted by a Sachem. What you saw was a meeting of minds. We observed one another for our innermost emotions to search for doubt and misgivings. This is not a matter that can be contemplated in a matter of minutes. We need more time. Hours. Days. Weeks. You will know our feelings once we have decided what those feelings are.”
They communicate by reading their body language? How do they get anything done? Though Ben had to admit, it was easier to hide behind words than the minute details of one’s posture. Ben now had a clearer understanding of the Orks’ distaste for long exchanges. They often spoke in short bursts and chose their words rather carefully. He wondered if their own language had been developed to make deceit more difficult.
“In the meantime, our ambassador, Pyat, will provide a…how you say…tour of our city,” the middle Sachem said. “Welcome to Kokopolis, the capital of Ney, Benedict Limmetrad.”
The fires along the stage were instantly snuffed, and the chamber was in total darkness. Ben did not attempt to adjust his eye in his condition, and he soon found that there would be no need. A metal door screeched open, and a torch weakly illuminated the chamber. It was just bright enough for Ben to see that the three Sachems had disappeared before he had had the chance to press for more information. Whatever. He accepted defeat for now. After all, he needed time for his legs to heal. Getting to know Ney in the meantime may not be such a bad idea. Besides, maybe he could learn where they were hiding the Vault since the Sachems decided not to tell him. He would play nice with his new hosts for now, but he was tired of asking for permission.
Pyat arrived promptly the next day at the infirmary to retrieve Ben for the tour of Kokopolis. Ben had wished that Gus would have given him the tour instead. Gus gave off a certain sense of comfort and familiarity that Ben appreciated. However, Gus insisted that he was needed at the infirmary. There were people who needed him there, he said. If Gus had it his way, Ben wouldn’t leave either. Regardless of Ben’s story about his powers, and even witnessing them for himself, Gus still felt most comfortable keeping Ben under a watchful eye. When Pyat showed up barely after the crack of dawn, Gus complained more about being woken up so early. If Ben had it his way, he would have found his friends before taking any tour. He wanted to know for sure that they were safe. And despite Gus’s good nature and capable hands, Ben still preferred the company of those who truly understood him.
The tour of Ney started off by carriage. Pyat had acquired an open-backed carriage drawn by four sturdy mares and driven by another man with a horse-skull tattoo over his face. The back of the carriage opened with a ramp, and Pyat ordered two servants to roll Ben to the top. He dismissed them with a gentle wave of his hand, and they hurried off down some alley.
“Good morning, Benedict,” Pyat said with a beaming smile. It was an unsightly expression with the man’s blue tattoos and gaunt face. He looked like a reptile reacting to something sour. He blurted something quick to the driver in Orkish, and the carriage started moving.
“This tour will be lasting for us a few hours of today,” Pyat started. His voice was high and excited. It was the only sound in the air. Most of the city seemed to still be sleeping off their festivities from the night before. “I will be having us to see the most important aspects of Kokopolis and teaching to you our history. In advance, I do apologize for my accent and broken Archayin. It is a lengthy language and filled with very many words. Trouble I have had learning to it. Please tell to me if you are misunderstanding what I speak.”
Ben shook his head. “You speak my language rather well. What did you call it—Archayin?”
“Yes, Archayin. It is a language based on the common speech of what your people I do believe refer to as ‘the Old Days.’”
Ben grinned. “Archayin. I’ve not heard that one. We’ve never put a name to our language. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve heard any other languages before arriving in Ney.”
“Yes, yes, there is much that will be different for you in Ney.” Pyat turned his attention to their surroundings. “We are still in the outer residential district. You will see that Kokopolis is constructed in many rings. The most inner of these are for peoples of noble birth or honorable feats. Warriors and scribes alike live there. And at the center is the Palace of the Sachems.”
“And where are we coming from?”
“We are coming from the living district of, uh, how you say…less stronger?”
“Weaker?”
Pyat mouthed the word as if he were tasting it. He shook his head. “No, ‘lower’ the term is, I believe. Lower station. Does this to make sense?”
“Lower status? Yes, it makes sense. What determines status?”
“Many factors there are! First, it is by birth. They live in any station as their parents. When one reaches their thirteenth summer, they are offered an apprenticeship with any trade that accepts them. If they succeed, they are forever marked for that life.”
“Marked. You mean by the tattoos?”
Pyat stroked the thin blue lines over his face. “Yes, I do believe that is the closest word in Archayin for our markings. Mine are to signify my duty to order and communication.”
A permanent brand of one’s duty made at the young age of thirteen. At thirteen, Ben thought he wanted to be a farmer. He tried to imagine what he looked like with a stalk of corn printed on his face. He didn’t like it. Forcing the young to decide what they wanted to do for the rest of their lives before they had enough time to really know what life had to offer. Then again, twelve was the start of the transition to adulthood in Freztad, and by sixteen, they were fully autonomous members of the village.
“And what if someone doesn’t get accepted into a trade?”
“They are free to try as many times as they wish,” Pyat answered. “So long as there are others willing to train them. As someone gets older and fails many apprenticeships they are looked less fondly upon. Once they go a year without being accepted, they are sent to join the scouts. They need as many people as they can and will turn down nobody.”
“What do the scouts do?”
Pyat looked puzzled. “Did I misspeak? You know the scouts. On the outside of the city you met them.”
“The ones with skulls tattooed on their faces?”
“Indeed. They are faced with death every day on the outside of our walls. So our tradition marks their faces with death itself. Scouts are those of us who brave the wilds. They forage the land for all that she can offer. They keep us safe from outsiders. They are the greatest among us.”
He paused a moment, turned around, and pointed. “Save for our venerable Sachems, of course. Scouts once, they were. The greatest.”
Ben had to turn to adequately view where Pyat was pointing. He saw that it was the palace of the Sachems. It was unfathomably more magnificent from a distance and in the daylight in which he could view the entire palace in all its glory. It was an elaborate dark-red fortress with triple eaves at its center connected to three wings. The two wings at the sides held smaller towers that arched away from the central tower, which was at least double the height of its counterparts. The richness of the palace was a stark contrast to the streets upon which they currently rode. The houses here were hardly more than crumbling piles of brick and mortar. From the current vantage point, Ben could see the buildings grow grander as they huddled closer to the palace. Even so, none were so fantastically ordained as the domain of the Sachems.
The tour continued along the dusky road, and Pyat continued to offer Ben pieces of history as they passed various sites of significance. There were to
o many for Ben to count, and few were able to compare to the striking sight of the palace. One such site was a great sculpture of the horned beast he’d seen depicted all across the city. It matched the horned skull worn by one of the three Sachems. With a more detailed look, he recognized it as the nearly extinct buffalo. In fact, they were so rare that Ben had never even seen one in person—only in books and paintings.
“Our most sacred animal,” Pyat said to Ben with awe. He had the driver stop the carriage as they neared the sculpture. “Forgive me. I must pay my respects.” He left the carriage and walked steadily to the buffalo. Its mighty horns curved and saluted the sky, and its head was bowed as if ready to charge. Pyat bent and touched his forehead against the base of the buffalo’s stony skull. He twirled around and marched back to the carriage. “For leaving, I apologize. The buffalo is the protector of Ney, the spirit of the land. It is the true and holy form of the Tatanka, the Great Spirit. Very few ways there are to make sacrifice to the land. We must show reverence when we can.”
Yet another religion that Ben had stumbled upon. This one seemed different. It was no abstract belief in a divine power or master of fate. Instead, the Orks gave thanks and praise to the very land that blessed them with life. It was less a religion and more a philosophy, Ben realized. A philosophy that, until he had seen the buffalo, he had no idea he embraced.
Pyat had the driver take them through a street that was full of shops and holes-in-the-wall selling trinkets and exotic foods that Ben had never heard of. Pyat bought Ben a brown drink that tasted like sweet and spicy cinnamon. He tried a piece of roasted duck flavored with a zesty sauce. Fish that he had never known existed hung from windows and were chopped and seasoned to order. There were toys that rang and whistled and wooden cards with foreign figures etched on their faces. All his life Ben had known only work for the sake of the village. The enjoyment he got from his work on the farm came from knowing that he was doing something that mattered. These people, though. They took pride in their work. Everything they did was like a work of art.
Eventually, they reached the edge of Kokopolis. They were by the outlet of the monstrous falls as they soothed into a calmer ocean-bound river. The shore was uneven and jagged, and the view of the falls was clear. There were, in fact, two falls, twins raging together. Ben couldn’t even be sure which of the two he had fallen from. How he had survived the fall from either one was an utter mystery. They were surely a sight to behold, and they took his breath away. Each was a rushing cascade that violently struck the bottom with a force so strong that the water was beaten back into the air almost as high as the falls themselves. With the sun past the meridian, there was just such a glare that refracted the perfect rainbow that bridged across the twins. This was something surely worthy of his attention.
“The Mouth of Ney,” Pyat said with a head bowed in reverence. “This we call it from its everlasting song. A song that was the salvation to the founders of Ney. Wanderers, our forefathers were. Lost hope, they had, of finding a place to ever call home. Then, at last, they heard the call and followed it until they came to this very spot. They were greeted with a view just as beautiful as the one we are greeted with this afternoon.
“Tell me, Benedict, how is that you first heard of Ney? What call did you follow?”
Ben’s mind went to Skalle and Gal and of the skull tattoos over their faces. He now understood that they must have been scouts as well. “I stumbled upon two Orks earlier this year. One of them gave me his fang and told me I could use it to gain entry into Ney. Too bad I lost it on the way here.”
Pyat’s eyebrows shot up to the top of his forehead. “It was given to you?”
Ben nodded. “I freed him and his brother from an Ænærian prison and saved their lives. Afterward, Gal tore a tooth from his gums and offered it to me saying that it would grant me access to Ney.”
“Astonishing!” Pyat exclaimed. “Tell me, were all of his teeth pointed? Did something about him seem…off?”
To say something was off about Gal was an understatement. The man’s laughs had been maniacal shrieks, and he tore at Ænærians’ throats with a horrifying pleasure. “He was very similar to the ferals I met during the trial. He terrified me and, if it weren’t for his brother, I probably would’ve stayed clear of Ney.”
“I do not understand. You say this Ork was accompanied by another?”
“He called himself Skalle. He was a beast of a man in appearance but extremely well versed in Archayin.”
“All rather abnormal, this is. A unique trait are the fangs that we Orks have not seen in other humans. Around one in every fifty children in our society develop mouths filled with lions’ teeth. This trait is found to have a nearly full correlation with anti-societal tendencies. They reciprocate rarely eye contact as babes, and they bite forcefully during feeding at their mothers. Uncommon it is not once they begin to grow teeth that they sever digits of those in their household. No solution we had us for many years. Our ancestors began losing livestock to their behavior. A result of Tatanka’s Curse, we eventually understood that they were the result of. They were reverted to beasts by the will of the Great Spirit as punishment for our ancient predecessors’ transgressions against the land. These ferals are now exiled beyond our borders so could they rejoin the land. They take up residence, most do, in the broken city beyond our walls—the Cursed Grove of Tatanka.”
“Your people just abandon your children like that?” It was a sore spot for Ben, having spent sixteen years thinking himself as an abandoned child.
“We do not see it as abandonment. The children do not pursue nor respond to nurturing or love. We allow them to roam free in the wild where their actions are of lesser consequence.”
Ben considered Pyat’s point. He was starting to feel a heavy burden of responsibility for letting Gal free. Maybe he belonged in prison, neutralized as a threat. “What about anyone else they come across? You describe them as extremely callous and dangerous. One of them made it all the way to Ænæria. How many other civilizations could they have wandered into? How much blood is on their hands? On Ney’s hands.”
Pyat gave a resigned sigh. “It is something that troubles us greatly. This is why we have our law of the fang. Though without provocation they seldom attack, their bloodlust is too insatiable to remain with us. Our scouts make all attempts to prevent too many from making the escape beyond this land, but there are so many, for they breed with one another like rabbits. Putting down a feral is the only way to lift their curse and allow their souls to rest peacefully with the land. We cannot do this ourselves, for all Orks bear this curse. Those outsiders who are free from it are thus the only who may break it. We are eternally grateful to those who redeem our wayward brethren.”
Gaining a sliver of the Orks’ culture surrounding the ferals slightly alleviated Ben’s guilt for killing some of them. From the way Pyat described them, it seemed Gal had been at least somewhat different from the ferals. Gal had been vicious and callous—maybe even mad—yet there was also a spark in his eyes. Ben could recall the way Gal looked to his brother with reverence. He did not dare act without permission. Strangest of all, he had developed a respect for Ben. He removed his own tooth and offered it to a stranger. The tooth a concrete representation of Gal’s twisted humanity. He had given himself to Ben, accepted him as one of his own, in a way that Gal had not even been accepted. It, therefore, seemed evident to Ben that something about Gal’s nature had changed from the typical feral. He recalled that the brothers were on their way back to Ney. He hoped they made it, that he could reconnect with them. More than that, he just hoped they were still together.
“A strange one, your story indeed is,” Pyat said. “You say he also bore the marks of a scout. It is not known for a feral to develop late enough in life to have already been integrated into our society. A leader of the scouts, perhaps, may know more. A fang has never been offered up before. They are all taken and to our people shown as proof of a soul lifted from the Curse. Has this been ma
de known to the Sachems?”
“It has,” Ben said with an air of frustration. “They know everything. They know I am desperate for answers. Yet still, they make me wait.”
“The Sachems did not tell me of your purpose here in Ney. To know is not my place. I tell you, Benedict, that if they are meditating on your behalf then this is a good sign. It means they are considering it with great value. A great many matters there are for the Sachems to decide. To place your own concerns within their minds is a great honor. Patience, I urge of you.”
“What other matters are there for them to consider?”
“The challenges of Ney,” Pyat answered. “Interpreting the will of the land and maintaining reverence to it. Without our reverence, the land will not provide us with nourishment. With yet another Curse, Tatanka may punish us.”
“Is there a problem with nourishment?” Ben asked, for it was something he knew much about. “You are surrounded by water, and I saw food in great abundance through the markets.”
“Indeed, we are blessed. The harshness of summer is behind us, and now we enjoy the calm before the storm of winter. You see, we are very near the great ocean. The storms here are violent and bring in a cold fury. The animals will hibernate, and many fish will freeze or hide. Many of our people die in the winter. Yet it is worse if Tatanka does not find favor with us. You come to us at a difficult time.”
“What about a harvest? Can you store food during the winter?”
“From Jambi, a small village in southern Ney, come our many crops. The soil in Kokopolis is weakened, our yield low. Greater success, Jambi has, but during winter is not enough. Little to live on now, less to save for winter.”
The Heir of Ænæria Page 30