[Closed] Whose Heart Would Not Take Flight

[Tom Cooke]

Serkaih • Eastern Erg

Morning on the 30th of Bethas, 2720

T
he smell here’s like nothing he knows; it’s not like the open sands – not exactly – but nothing like Thul Ka, nothing like anywhere else. Every breath of it seems to him new and strange, and he has to stay himself from breathing in overfull, has to remind himself that he’s time aplenty to grow used to it, to know it well, and eventually to remember it.

Nkemi beside him has settled into an ease he never knew from Vienda. He takes in her posture, straight but perhaps not prefect-straight, and the soft look on her face in the dawning light.

If he throws himself into it, throws his mind and all himself back, he might be able to imagine it: that first glimpse of her in the alleyway, the raised-hackles prickling all along his spine. He can still feel it, the disarming shock – more than if she’d taken a knife out of his hand – when she took his arm and spoke to him of the past. It feels like it was years ago; he feels like a different man.

An anchor, he thinks, looking over the tsan’ehew, his eyes bouncing from one to the next. With the wind breezing through the tall, curved walls, he has the strangest feeling of heaviness and lightness, like all of it is pressing down so hard it will pluck him up into the sky, or swallow him in color. He thinks about it, and thinks more.

He isn’t yet ready to speak when they hear the soft clack of a chisel on rock, just out of sight, growing louder and louder. He nearly doesn’t see him, for all he’s in the shade; he only finds him when he hears Nkemi’s whispered Mugrobi, and glances over at her only long enough to see her head bowed. He thinks the man looks familiar, but he can’t place him, and he doesn’t look long there, either.

He nods as they wind away, though there is something bitter in the set of his lips and at the back of his tongue. “Some of these must’ve been built by many hands indeed,” is all he can say, looking up at the tallest he’s ever seen.

He thinks of Niccolette, funny enough; he can’t imagine her here at all, but if he could, he doesn’t think she’d like help carving his tsan’ehew. And–? He realizes he doesn’t know if imbali are permitted here; he puts the thought away.

Would he’ve wanted to chisel one out alone? Whose? He’s seen much death, but not much grief; not many he’s loved have died, just drifted away. If he has his lass, his hama, even Dee no longer, it’s not because any of them died. He doesn’t know what to call what he feels, if not grief. But whose tsan’ehew would he chisel?

It’s dimmer, here, though not the dark two dozen paces distant, where the sunlight creeps on slow and the shadow swallows the tsan’ehew beyond it. He shivers under his light cloth; his eyes wander over the tsan’ehew here.

Another they pass is not quite as worn as the one from earlier; it catches his eye because, like more than a few here, there’s nothing in or around it, nothing but the colorful stone. Its only anchor is itself.

He blinks, looking down at it, when she speaks. They’ve stopped a few feet away; he couldn’t’ve said if that it was her or him that had done the stopping. It’s like a strange echo from his dream.

“No,” he says, soft, without thinking; “no, it wouldn’t feel right.” He can still feel it, crisper than a dream ought to be, the stone and glass and soft tangled hair underneath his fingertips.

Out of respect, he thinks, and doesn’t add. He hears some other undercurrent in her voice; still, he knows better than to ask. He looks at the worn house a moment longer, then at her, smiling.

Now, he disentangles his arm from hers. He wanders freely; he takes in the barrage of offerings on one sharp-carved tsan’ehew – this one looking very much like a house – and then another, and another… He wanders, and his steps take him just to the edge of the dark, where the sun doesn’t move fast enough to keep up with his feet. He stands on the edge of the dark, looking in, then turns and looks at Nkemi.

I think our souls are that large, he wants to say. He wonders what lives stretch out behind Nkemi pezre Nkese; he wonders what lives stretch ahead of her. He hopes very much that this one is long, but not so long as his will be.

He inclines his head as he comes back, still turning over what she said. “Do people come here often at night?” he asks.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, Bethas 30, 2720
The Cultural Center, Serkaih

Anetol wanders; Nkemi looks around, at the tsan’ehew and the tiny changes which sweep through them with the passage of time, at the proud cliffs which so have stood as long as the memory of her people sweeps back, and perhaps longer.

It is said that once this place was an ocean, long before memory began; it is said that in time, none of Bash can stand before Imaan, before the drift of wind and the sweeping rain, before the wild roar of the sandstorm, and that even these cliffs shall crumble. Nkemi drifts to the edge, setting her palm soft against a stripe of pale orange sandstone, and tilts her head back to look at the light gleaming overhead.

She looks down once more; Anetol is watching her from the edge of the dark, where the light has not yet reached. The sun just barely glints off his hair, his hand still in his hands, gleaming in lines of red and silver. Nkemi smiles at him, because he is not smiling, just now, but watching her, solemnly.

“When I was young,” Nkemi says, “juela told me that the desert is for uliams at night. She told me that it might be dangerous, here amongst the tsan’ehew, to stray out of the circle of the light.”

Nkemi’s arm tucks through Anetol’s, when he is close enough; there is plenty more to see. The canyon narrows, and widens again, and this is only one path; the river which must have run here, long ago, split and split again, and came together, and knew itself well.

“Not without need,” Nkemi says, finally, a soft answer to Anetol’s question; she has learned something of Anaxi customs, in her time abroad. She has learned something of what they think of answers, and of questions too.

They wander onward. The sun climbs up, higher; the light does not reach every crevice in the canyon even at the peak of the day, although as the sun arches over, in time, it will find the last of the shadow and drive it out. All the lanterns are unlit, now, although the glass catches and sparkles in the sun, brilliantly clean. This, too, Nkemi knows, is the work of tsorerem and tsochyusem alike.

Ada’na Aleala, who has been a tsorerem as long as Nkemi remembers and for some years before, told her once that there is no task of cleaning which is too low for a true tsorerem. Their other duties, she explained, take them away from the sacred duty of maintenance, and so the tsochyusem come, too, to give honor to the dead. Nkemi had not asked; she had never thought of the difference, before. She did not understand, then, what it was Aleala wished to tell her, or why; she knows, now. She understands, now, and she is grateful, though such words may sting.

The sun rises, and higher still. It is never as hot on the canyon floor as on the ground above, but in time Nkemi watches Anetol put his hat back on his head, and sees, in the soft shade, the hint of redness on the back of his neck and in his cheeks. There is no need for guiding, but they wander back towards the cultural center in the edge of the shade, and rejoin the path in time.

Nkemi holds the heavy door open for Anetol, and welcomes him inside. The stone walls of the cultural center are thick; it is cool inside, if not dark, even in the heat of the hottest day, and scrupulously clean, with only the faintest trace of the dust outside. Nkemi walks with Anetol to a comfortable seat at the edge of the exhibition hall, and leaves him to look out at the neat array of glass cases which trace back the history of Serkaih to its earliest days. They are arranged in a circle around a tsan’ehew so sloping that it is only just recognizable as such, tall and many-splendored; the light which trickles in from the windows sweeps over it and sparkles.

“I will fetch kofi,” Nkemi says with a smile, pressing Anetol’s hand with hers. She knows where to slip into the back, where to pump water if needed, where to find the kettle and cups; she goes, unhesitating.

[Tom Cooke]

The Cultural Center • Serkaih

Morning on the 30th of Bethas, 2720

I
t heats up slowly, so he’s scarce aware of it until it is pressing down on him. Until – as she said it would – the whole of Serkaih is lit in more colors than he can name, and as they wind back along the path, he looks up at the brilliant walls from underneath his hat. The light catches on the glass and metal lantern cases, some of them sparking too bright to look at. Even though they keep to the shade, he can feel the heat radiating from the warming rock. He imagines how cool it must be at night, cool as a tomb.

Beautiful on a clear night, she said last night, and – he wonders. Juela told me, she said, and he wonders.

He’s not forgot the sound of them during the sandstorm, just audible over the billowing wind and the sand packed over the wagon. He remembers sitting in the dark to it, thinking he was dead, thinking it was some desert whalesong, the uliam crying.

He remembers what Nkemi’s juela has said of Serkaih not being a place for bochi; he thinks it wise, all told, for all the nooks and crannies there are to be lost in. Ada’na Nkese seems a sensible woman. He remembers, too, what Nkemi’s juela told her of cracks between Evers. He doesn’t look back behind him as they come to the cultural center, though the memory of tsan’ehew disappearing into the shade sticks in his head.

Inside, it’s blessedly cool; his eyes still ache with the light – they’ve ached and scratched since the storm – but the tall, smooth, brilliant tsan’ehew takes his breath away. The floors are smooth and clean, too; there’s no grit or scuffling underneath his sandals, the pairs of their feet clicking softly as she guides him to a seat across the hall, where he sinks gratefully down.

“Thank you, Nkemi,” he says, smiling back, squeezing her hand and letting it go. She moves quick and easy, a swish of yellow fabric; he watches her headscarf bob round and out of sight, following the curve of the glass cases with their plaques until she disappears somewhere in the back.

Ease of experience. Sitting here, he looks down at his hand on the low, smooth stone table, tracing the line of a whirl of color with his fingertip. He looks over at the glass cases, trying to picture her a boch the top of whose head doesn’t quite reach the plaques. A bright smile and big, thoughtful eyes. It’s not so hard to picture, that.

He eases back against the chair. He thought when he came in he’d be up and looking at the cases, but his thighs ache, and he wants to sit awhile longer. From here, he can see the edge of a page, the cover of a book, a row of scrolls. He can’t make out much more, with the way the light slants in and catches on the glass, almost brighter than the lanterns’ outside.

A round-faced, elderly woman is sweeping across the hall, wrapped in white. Her broom whisks quietly over the floor; her hems swish about her ankles.

After a time he stands, wandering over to the cases. Some of the plaques are longer than the fragments within; he starts at the one he reaches first, though they wind in a circle, and he can’t tell where he’s meant to start. Perhaps that’s the point.

This one is labeled 560 AT, with a lengthy block of Mugrobi script, and underneath it, Estuan – Ire’múh codified the traditions of Serkaih in the Tsaraw, for the first time outlining the already-ancient sacred rites, duties, and prayers of tsorerem and tsochyusem; it has been faithfully reproduced over the centuries, and very little has changed in the…

He looks up when he catches a flash of yellow in the corner of his eye. The elderly woman inclines her head to Nkemi, who is bringing out the kofi; he smiles, and starts back toward the seat where he left his hat. “This is where you met Professor Natete?” he asks, breathing in the scent of the kofi gratefully as he sinks into the chair.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, Bethas 30, 2720
The Cultural Center, Serkaih

Nkemi’s hand is larger on the pump than it once was. She remembers grasping it with two hands as a girl, face set and intent. She remembers setting the heavy pot beneath the pump, and pulling on it two handed; she remembers crouching on the ground, a little clay cup precariously balanced, and tilting the pot with both hands, holding her breath so as not to spill so much as a drop.

She remembers spilling, perhaps, more than just one drop, but not so much as to be ashamed. Hulali’s gift to Roa, her mother might have called it in such days, when Nkemi helped her learn the intricacies of their own pump. But she remembers, too, a small clay cup cradled carefully to her chest, full to the brim, and the smile on Natete’s face when she brought it to him inside.

There are many more such memories, and though her hands are not large now, she can work the pump one-handed with ease; it is sized so that any of the tsorerem may. She carries the pot inside, and heats the water on the stove; there is kofi and a mortar and pestle, and she scrapes it, already burnt, to a fine powder, and sets it on the small coal-burning stove, which is as scrupulously clean as ever, though she has known it almost twenty years.

Nkemi carries two clay cups of kofi out into the hall; Anetol is gazing at one of the cases. Ada’na Ale’ala smiles and greets Nkemi with a bow of her head; Nkemi smiles back at her, and reaches out with a friendly caprise.

“Yes,” Nkemi says with a smile; she sinks down into her seat with ease. She still feels the lingering effects of the two days spent camel-back; she is sore down her back, and all through her legs, though less so after all the walking than she was upon waking. Anetol does not complain – she knows he will not – but she was glad, all the same, to see him standing and studying the cases when she returned.

“There are carrels for scholars in some of the side rooms,” Nkemi says with a smile. “The archives here are not as grand as Idisúfi, but I understand there is much preserved here which cannot be found elsewhere. There are few doors which stay closed very long to an inquisitive child.”

Nkemi does not disrupt ada’na Ale’ala in her work; the woman is still sweeping, smooth and even. This is not a floor which ever gleams, but they and other visitors have shaken the dust from their sandals, and Ale’ala swishes it away from the displays.

Nkemi takes a small sip of her kofi, cradled between her hands; she slips her sandals off, and tucks her feet up beneath the legs of her pants. Her eyes wander over the display cases, and she offers a smile up to Anetol.

“He was kind, as he always is,” Nkemi says, quietly. Ale’ala has swept out into the antechamber; Nkemi hears the quiet creak and clatter of the broom being set away. “I never doubted that my fetching of books and water was indispensable to him.” She smiles at Anetol, her eyes bright; she takes another sip of kofi. “He taught me much of questions and answers.”

Ale’ala comes back, her steps slower and more shuffling than five years ago, and much more than twenty years ago. Her eyes are bright, though, as bright as ever.

Nkemi sets her kofi down and comes to her feet; she bows, deeply. “I did not wish to disrupt your work, ada’na,” she says, taking Ale’ala’s hands. "It is a blessing to see you."

Ale’ala has bowed as well; her hands, knobby now with age, squeeze Nkemi’s lightly. “As ever, you’re a good girl, Nkemi,” she says, smiling, all the lines on her face crinkling up. “All work which is worthy of being done merits a full heart and attentive mind.”

She bows to Anetol as well; her clairvoyant field is not particularly strong, but there is a depth to the soft mona, and she has a way of enveloping.

“This is Anetol Vakelin,” Nkemi says, smiling, “who is my guest here in Serkaih. Anetol, I am very pleased to introduce to you Ada’na Ale’ala pezre Ala’fia, the most senior of the tsosrem of Serkaih.”

[Tom Cooke]

The Cultural Center • Serkaih

Morning on the 30th of Bethas, 2720

K
ind, Nkemi says, with warmth and something else in her voice.

He takes his clay cup, cradling it in his lap and smiling. He glances away, toward where the hall disappears into a side room; he can see nothing for the tsan’ehew glowing in the sunlight, but he makes note of it. “He seems a man who knows much of them,” he says, quiet, choosing his words with care, “and of understanding.”

He can’t see where Nkemi went, either. He wonders if she roasted these beans and ground them herself, or if she only brewed it. He takes a sip, careful because it’s hot; it is, but he can taste it, and he tries to tuck that taste away in his memory, strong and smoky-dark. One of a dizzying array of kofi tastes, this one belonging to Serkaih – and to Nkemi’s thoughtful hand.

He wonders if she brought Natete kofi, too. He wonders if the books and the water and the questions and the company weren’t so indispensable to Natete after all. He thinks of the man he remembers from Ivuq’way; he thinks – though he can’t imagine, not really, what it’s like to teach and work at a place like Thul’amat, or to’ve studied like a galdor in the first place. Still, he thinks of a quiet carrel in the midst of all this rock and quiet, and memory of the dead and their seekers, for so many months. He thinks a bright little boch’s ready help must’ve been a fine thing indeed.

He’s watched her settle herself, watched her take off her sandals; he wasn’t sure this was the place for it, but now he joins her, because his feet ache something laoso. His legs are stiff enough he can’t quite tuck them underneath him, but he folds himself happily in the seat anyway, leaning with the cool rock against his back and under his feet.

He notices for the first time, with the strangest surprise, that the soles of his feet are callused now. Not from many years’ pinching of narrow dress shoes, not as he found them when he first – not as they were at first. He’s scuffed them, slipped in the sand, walked on them even harder than he did in Yaris, in the isles. He’s not sure what to do with it, with the feeling of the smooth rock under his feet, so he puts it away; it’s almost too much to think about.

And there’s plenty else to think about, too. He’s about to say something else, about doors and inquisitive children; his smile reaches his eyes. He hears a soft shuffling on the rock, and he turns his head to look.

He knows the brush of soft clairvoyant mona shouldn’t take him by surprise. He knew, looking at her afar, she was no natt, even if he hadn’t known this was no place for them. But she was there in the corner of his eye, sweeping quietly, and he –

Nkemi stands; he pushes himself to his feet at the same time, and bows deeply. He watches, smiling, as Nkemi presses her hands, and whatever he feels at what the tsorerem says, his smile loses none of its warmth. Work, he thinks, feeling strangely bitter and sweet, which is worthy of being done.

He smiles again when Nkemi introduces him, and raises his eyebrows slightly. “We are honored by your visit, Mister – Vakelin,” ada’na Ale’ala pronounces carefully.

“I am honored to be here, ada’na Ale’ala,” he says, “and to be introduced to you,” and reaches out to meet the seniormost tsorerem’s caprise with his own.

There’s something about it, like running your hands over sage, he thinks, or lying down in sun-warmed grass and breathing in the smell. He can’t describe it, but it’s not forceful; he doesn’t feel swallowed or pushed, just swathed in something warm, like the lapping of water or a breeze. The sense of it lingers even as he draws politely back.

As he eases back into his seat, he asks, “Have you a moment to join us, ada’na?”

There’s still a smile in all the lines of ada’na Ale’ala’s face; she looks at him, then warmly at Nkemi, then over her shoulder at the hall. “A moment,” she concedes, inclining her head. “I cannot share kofi with you, but rest may refill the heart and renew the mind; it, too, is one of Roa’s gifts.” She sits as slowly as she walks, resting her hand on the table, with its lines and knobbly joints. “How have you been, Nkemi?”

If there's concern in her eyes, it's tempered; she says nothing more, asks no more questions, though she reaches again to take Nkemi's hands.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, Bethas 30, 2720
The Cultural Center, Serkaih

Nkemi looks down at the wrinkled hands in hers; Ale’ala’s skin is soft, now, thinner than much of the parchment lovingly preserved in the cultural centers, with veins which wind along them in vibrant paths. Her fingers have thickened, especially at the knuckles, and they are not quite straight. They squeeze, though, firmly, and if they tremble with the effort Nkemi still smiles.

“I have been grateful,” Nkemi says, cheerfully, “for my many blessings.”

Ale’ala laughs, softly. “Do you still thank Hulali every day?” She smiles, a soft look in her eye.

Nkemi giggles; it was not quite a joke between them, for one does not joke of such things, but it was a kindness offered her, many years ago. Counting one’s blessings is like counting the raindrops, Ale’ala told her, then.

Natete did not mind Nkemi unraveling his metaphors, finding the twists and turns of them and airing them aloud. It is a learning, to do so; he would guide her towards his thinking, but never shied to see new depth where she uncovered it.

Such metaphors should not to be used to shield the truth; they should not meant to hide it. They come at it sideways, but this is only because the truth may sometimes rest sideways. Sometimes, too, they may be truer than you can know; sometimes, too, the meaning itself may change.

Nkemi never tried to ask Ale’ala what her metaphors meant; for all the questions she had as a girl, she knew what silence was. But she kept them laid deep in a place inside her, and turned them over quiet, and found her truths within.

“Yes,” Nkemi says, smiling. “With my words or my heart; to hear the rushing of water is to know His mercy.”

It is true; it has always been true. She has learned to speak it - to know it - and these last months have been an exercise in remembering. Nkemi thinks of icicles melting in Vienda, droplets sliding from them to the ground below; she thinks of cool pumps and water swirling underground, of the garden at Iz, of the sloshing of lukewarm water in a canteen.

Nkemi thinks, too, of a dying man and a casket, and a story she once told; she thinks of mercy, many faceted, gleaming on all sides.

Ale’ala squeezes Nkemi’s hand once more, firmly, and sets her hands together on the table.

“And you?” Nkemi asks, softly. There is much which she can see; there is that which does change over the years, no matter what one hopes in their heart.

Ale’ala smiles. “It has been many years since first I came to Serkaih. Roa has blessed me with the chance to live in a place where time passes like the deepest water.”

Nkemi understands; her throat moves, once, but she does not protest. Her small hand settles over Ale’ala’s, though this time she does not squeeze. She draws away; she takes her cup of kofi, hot and fragrant with a pinch of sugar and mends, and sips at it.

No two cups are the same, Nkemi reminds herself; nor should they be. She looks around the cultural center, and back at the tsan’ehew in the center, with its vivid worn colors. She remembers to savor it, as with any first sip.

“And you, Mr. Vakelin?” Ale’ala turns to Anetol; she smiles. Her gaze is as sharp as it ever was; as sharp as Nkemi remembers it from her girlhood, although she always tempered it with laughter and kindness both. She grins at him. “How are you?”

[Tom Cooke]

The Cultural Center • Serkaih

Morning on the 30th of Bethas, 2720

E
ven with the time he’s spent in the isles, even with all the time he’s spent in the desert – even with Owo’dziziq and all his Bull Elephant friends in Vienda, making the houses of parliament chase their tails – this way of getting at things still washes over him and washes back, leaving him none the wiser.

It makes him feel a little like a boch. He wonders if it came so easy to Nkemi, or even to Ale’ala, as a child. He wonders how you learn to speak so.

He smiles between Nkemi and the tsorerem, not quite understanding – until Nkemi replies, and he thinks he knows a little of what she might mean.

Ale’ala’s smiling; so is he, and it doesn’t falter, and he doesn’t look down at her hands on the table. They linger in the corner of his eyes, dark against the bright, smooth rock. They remind him a little of Dee’s; he can imagine the feel of them, rough in some places and soft in others, traced with veins like little rivers and spots even darker than her skin. When she speaks, Nkemi’s hand comes to rest on one of them, young and smooth.

The question turns on him, as he knows it must. He’s not sure what to say, at first, amid all this talk of water that rushes fast and creeps slow. He knows what he’d say to a question like that in Vienda.

His smile tilts; he looks down at his own hands on the table, then back up. “It seems to me the water moves fast sometimes, and slow others, and I don’t know where it will take me,” he says. “I’m grateful to Hulali to hear it, still.” He speaks the truth, even if he doesn’t want it to be the truth.

The tsorerem’s sharp eyes stay on him, and her eyebrows raise slightly. It’s not mirth exactly – he doesn’t feel he’s being poked at – but they’re watchful, and they glitter. “Hulali has brought you to Serkaih, then,” she says, inclining her head.

A host, he thinks, is like a boat. No. A host… “It’s a blessing to share this current with Nkemi.” He smiles over at her, inclining his head, then takes a sip of kofi. “I plan to come here often, over the next week – I’ve a great deal to learn from Serkaih.”

Ada’na Ale’ala inclines her head again, exchanging a glance with Nkemi. “The waters run deep; many cups may overflow here.” She’s still smiling. “How long will you stay?”

“The Vyrdag takes us back to Thul Ka at the beginning of Loshis.”

Ale’ala looks back toward Nkemi, now, and he has the sense that she’s studying the young prefect’s face. “I hope to see the both of you again over the coming days,” she says firmly, and reaches to clasp Nkemi’s hand again, briefly, with hers.

If there’s something else in her smile, he can’t read it; he doesn’t think it’s sadness, exactly, but she turns back to him. “There are many you may wish to speak to during your stay – ada’xa Owiru pez Dzof’uhem, tsochyusem, and ada’na Ereq’dzeza, if she has not yet returned to Thul’amat…”

He inclines his head; he listens, sipping kofi, and makes note of the names. After a moment, Ale’ala pauses, smiling at both of them, though her eyes linger on Nkemi. “You will – take care,” she adds carefully, “I hope, to watch the paths for feet that have crossed before you. Some stir up little dust, but leave prints, if one knows to look for them.”

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, Bethas 30, 2720
The Cultural Center, Serkaih

The past is like a river, Nkemi told Anetol once, as, not so long ago, her mentor Ruekda once told her. She remembers these words, now, listening to him find his way through the metaphor she and Ale’ala have woven together. She remembers, too, standing next to Anetol in a darkened alley in the Dives of Vienda, her hand on the sleeve of his coat, feeling him shake, and hearing his voice crack as he told her the river was deep, and cold.

She understands, now, much more, and yet still not all.

There are those who think the clairvoyant conversation leads one to understand the minds of others, Nkemi remembers being told long ago, in a lecture in her early days at Ire’dzosat. We are rich in understanding, Professor Udheuko went on, and richer still for knowing how much there is that we do not know.

“This I hope as well,” Nkemi says; she meets Ale’ala’s gaze, and turns her hand to take the older woman’s. She understands; she understands very well, and she draws her back up prefect straight. Ale’ala is still taller than her, though not so much as she was when Nkemi was younger; this is a relief, though she cannot say why.

Nkemi’s forehead wrinkles in the tiniest of frowns as Ale’ala goes on; her gaze searches the older woman’s face. “To know caution is to know wisdom,” Nkemi replies, with the faintest inclining of her head. “To be forewarned is to catch the updraft of Vespe’s wings.”

They talk, a little more, as Nkemi and Anetol drink their kofi, and Ale’ala drinks in her rest. Nkemi listens, her gaze between them, as Anetol asks Ale’ala about the fragments of They Are Heard. She knows, already, that it is not so easy as coming to the Cultural Center, but she knows, too, that even here the word incumbent carries with it a weight. For a moment, she sees Anetol’s head bow, and she wonders.

Nkemi rises with Ale’ala; she bows, deeply, and takes her hands one last time, at least for today. Ale’ala smiles at her, sharp-eyed, and at Anetol; she goes, whisking slowly around the room in neatly wrapped white, walking on sandaled feet from exhibit to exhibit.

Nkemi takes her and Anetol’s cups; she rinses them clean, and comes to rejoin Anetol. He is looking down at one of the cases, this one on the history of tools used for tsan’ehew.

In the early-2600s, there was a flurry of interest in designing engine-like machines to facilitate the construction of tsan’ehew, here in Serkaih and elsewhere. Apedu wrote against this, and forbade the use of such machinery. In her words: to honor our ancestors and their passing is to use the tools of their hands; what should the dead know of progress?

Nkemi tucks her arm under Anetol’s, and she smiles at him.

They go deeper into the cultural center; it is not so large, but there are room and corridors enough. Nkemi takes him down the stairs to the archive; it is even cooler here, though not damp even by the standards of the desert, with lanterns glowing on the walls. The archivist’s desk is empty, and Nkemi stands, leaving the small seat against the wall before it to Anetol.

The archivist, Safeera, or her assistant, Ife, Ale’ala told Anetol; they are the ones to whom to make your petition.

It is not long before quiet voices drift in from the hallway. Nkemi hears Ife’s, soft, though she does not make out the words.

Badhe, who walks next to her, is not so quiet in his words. “… that Tsarero would have allowed an additional guard. Perhaps they are rumors only; you are too young to remember the last visit of Dzevizawa, but should not our memories be long?”

They turn the corner into the door; Nkemi smiles at Ife from the desk.

“Nkemi!” Badhe is not much younger than her father; he is wrapped in crisp white linen, which dangles from the strong muscles of his chest; his hair is close-cropped short; he greets her with a smile and a bow, caprising her and Anetol both. He grins at her, and his gaze, too, takes in Anetol. “How good to see you. Your father has spoken of little but your arrival.”

Nkemi bows as well, grateful for his caution, for all that it is not needed here. “Ada’xa Badhe,” she says with a smile. “It is good to see you again.”

[Tom Cooke]

The Cultural Center • Serkaih

Morning on the 30th of Bethas, 2720

H
e doesn’t jolt when her arm slips through his, but he blinks and takes a moment to look up from the block of text. He finds a smile on his face – it’s been there all along, he thinks; it’s a pale, middling sort of smile – and lets her guide him on. His eyes flick over the other plaques, lingering on an Estuan word here, an Estuan word there. He’s still thinking, and he’s silent awhile.

They wind down into a cooler, darker place. Looking about him, he wonders how far it stretches; not far, he thinks, but he wonders too what else might be underneath the brilliant rock of the canyons.

He can’t put it together in his head. He’s used to not understanding, now; he can let it trickle by him, flow over him. If the past is a river, there’s much downstream for Nkemi and Ale’ala, he’s no doubt. It wasn’t Nkemi’s brigk-squared shoulders that troubled him, this time, but an updraft he doesn’t know how to catch.

Her posture is easy, now, as they wind into the room with the great heavy desk. She leads him to sit – they wait – he thinks. Lanternlight casts flickering ghosts over the walls. These are no less colorful than the ones above; the flames pick out purples and pinks, reds, soft sweeping yellows melting into the reflected light.

His mind turns over, flitting down other corridors. He’s thinking now of what he heard between Ale’ala’s words when she spoke of the archives and the fragments, and what he might’ve seen of himself reflected in her eyes. He felt Nkemi’s eyes on him, too.

The voices scatter his thoughts again. He recognizes one of them, and the other he doesn’t. The long desert Mugrobi lopes along, but there’s four syllables he recognizes, like a glitter in a stream.

He rises more easily this time. Ife he’s not surprised to see, holding her head high, but the other man he doesn’t know. He bows when the man does, and meets the static mona in his caprise briefly and politely.

Badhe’s grin lingers for Nkemi, and he inclines his head, though he looks at Ife. His arms are crossed over his chest, broad for a galdor; there’s no grey in his hair in the low light, but there are lines round his mouth and eyes when he smiles.

There’s still a faint frown on Ife’s face, and a quirk of one thin brow. He can tell she’s tried to smooth it out; she’s succeeded – somewhat. “Mr. Vakelin,” she says, moving into the room and round the desk, “Nkemi,” and she inclines her head and smiles at the prefect, a little more warmly. “This is…”

“Badhe pez Anup,” Badhe finishes, “tsochyusem of Serkaih.” He’s still smiling, and still watchful.

“Good to meet you, ada’xa Badhe,” he says, inclining himself in another half-bow, “and you again, ada’na.”

“Please, have a seat. I would offer you kofi, but I’m afraid my duties must take me elsewhere shortly,” Ife says, and he sits again, hat in his lap.

“The tsorerem’s cup is ever full,” says Badhe. He waits still.

“Overflowing,” she agrees.

The conversation winds on, but the choice remains with him, always with him; the word does not leave Nkemi’s lips. He is Anatole, he is a friend, he is a guest. He’s not sure if it’s easier, this. He’s not sure what ties down his tongue, weights the word like an anchor chained to its ankle.

“... the fragments, ada’na,” he says shortly, inclining his head. “It would be a great honor.”

Ife exchanges a glance he can’t read with Nkemi. Badhe watches. “Bash, Hulali, and Alioe all have been kind to those pages,” she says, “and we have been cautious to preserve their gift.” There is a pause. “I am afraid I have been impolite; amid my duties, I have neglected to ask what has brought you to Mugroba.” She smiles.

“The turning of the Cycle has me in Thul Ka through the flood season, ada’na.” The smile hasn’t left his face, either. He swallows; he can hear a sort of rushing in his ears.

Sitting on the Vyrdag, he thinks. As, he thinks. As a representative of, he thinks. As an Anaxi –

“But,” he goes on, “my path has taken me here for personal reasons. I’m grateful for whatever Serkaih may offer me.”

The tightness round Ife’s eyes doesn’t ease; she glances at Nkemi once more, and then smiles. “I will speak to ada’na Safeera. I’m afraid she is absent today, and I cannot make any promises.” Badhe shifts underneath the lantern; Ife rises behind the desk and begins to move away. “But much of our collection is open to any inquisitive mind. If you’ll follow us, we can show you where the bulk of our texts on ib’vuqem – and adjacent topics – are located; it’s on the way.”

He rises from his seat. “I would be honored, ada’na,” and he smiles at Nkemi, “if my host doesn’t mind?”

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, Bethas 30, 2720
The Cultural Center, Serkaih

Nkemi feels the gap in the spaces between his words, and she makes no move to fill it.

She thinks of Anetol as she first met him, before, in knowing if not long in time, the hand on his arm in a small dark alley and before too, in knowing if not long in time, they ever spoke of rivers. She met him first well-dressed, sitting in his study with a glass of whiskey, all the power of his name gleaming in his eyes and the lift of his chin. She met him, Incumbent Anatole Vauquelin - for she has long known how his name is written - with all the weight of that name, weight enough to bring a Seventen and his unlikely partner to his home.

When Ife looks at her, Nkemi smiles back, and she says nothing. He is as she has introduced him, Anetol Vakelin; he is, too, her friend and her guest, though she holds no weight but the slightest hint of history in the archives beneath Serkaih.

“I would be glad,” Nkemi says, smiling.

She knows the texts well; there was a time when she pulled the stepstool across the floor to many of the shelves, and fetched down this or that. It is clear, even to a small, inquisitive girl, which lines should not be crossed; Nkemi knew them well, then, and she knows them, too, now.

It was not only so young that she came down here; Natete’s last visit was during her fourteenth summer, and she was not much shorter then than she is now. Still, Nkemi knows, she would need the stool to reach the highest of the books; they use all the space which they have, here, and leave behind only that which is needed for order.

It is Anetol Nkemi watches, though she looks at the books, too, and listens to Ife before she leaves them in a whisper of sandals on stone, to return to the work of the tsorerem. Badhe waits; he does not linger inside the room, but Nkemi hears the slow whisking of cloth over every lantern outside; one by one, the lights dim as the glass is cleaned, and are relit in turn. His shadow passes the door, every so often; Nkemi does not catch him looking in, but she is aware of the weight of his gaze all the same, and aware, too, that it does not fall on her.

Tomorrow, Ife and Anetol agree; when Safeera has returned, Anetol will discuss the fragments with her. She is polite and just shy of apologetic; she speaks of a duty of care, of Alioe’s gifts and what is owed them. She makes no promises on Safeera’s behalf, nor even implications. Nkemi does not ask for them and neither does Anetol, not in the way she knows he could.

They wander a little more, outside, in time; Badhe does not see them to the surface, but keeps on his errand of cleaning, wandering to the last lamps at the edge of the hallways. The sun is brighter, now; it is not so cool, on the canyon floor. Nkemi gauges the flush on Anetol’s cheeks; she does not wish him to strain himself, now.

The hike back up the walls of the canyon is not so difficult; they are, at least, tucked into the shade at this hour, or at least some of it, if they cling to the wall. All the same, it is slow, careful going, and Nkemi feels the slow, steady sagging of Anetol against her. The desert above is hot, dry and brutal; sun gleams off the ground in hazy waves. It was a short walk to Dkanat in the morning; it is a long walk back, in the early afternoon.

Nkemi leaves Anetol to Emeka, Jioma and Jinasa; she leaves him to cool yogurt and cooler water, to flatbread and whatever else he can stomach. She leaves him with a promise to come again in the coolness of the evening, to guide him to the last of the places he has not yet seen. She smiles, and it fills the whole of her face, even with the dampness running down his back and the flush which spreads together through his freckles; she squeezes his hands in hers, and then she goes.