[Closed] Whose Heart Would Not Take Flight

[Tom Cooke]

The Southern Desert • Eastern Erg

Late Afternoon on the 29th of Bethas, 2720

M
ercy.

It was as if somebody’d tied a ribbon over it; it was as if their fingers had been resting over the tie, Roa had tied the bow with careful fingers. He hadn’t been sure what to make of it at first, Nkemi holding up the orange. Her goggles on her forehead, her face turned toward the sun, so it caught on the tear-tracks like trails of glass.

He’d understood, then. Even one. He’d been quiet as they walked back toward the blankets, the sun sinking low in the deep blue sky behind them. He’d wondered how many she had packed, not knowing if they’d make the journey.

It had sat well and ill with him, all at once, for all her trust – in him, in the Circle, in the world – meant, for all the different shapes it took.

He had told himself, then, it was the shock of what had just happened (I’m not ready, echoing in his head). He kept thinking of her tucking the orange back in her trunk, orange-on-orange, and kneeling and praying.

He’d prayed with her, then, sinking to the floorboards behind; he’d thanked Roa for that trust, and asked Her questions there was no answer to.

He spreads his pages out that evening in the tent, ink glistening in the soft lanternlight. The page numbers are worn off, here and there, but he knows them. He tries to remember which pages she’s seen and which she hasn’t, but it’s a fool’s errand. In the blurry glow, raw-eyed but full of warm spicy chickpea stew, he lays them out one by one in order against the blankets. He puts them together; he takes stock, alone, of this dzu’tsogiq.

This clause – amplification?

Ada’na Inis’ warm voice still echoes through the back of his mind. Nkemi was right; she sang of dzu’tsogiq. She also sang of mercy.

Mostly, it seemed to him, she sang of mercy.

Ole sang with her, this time. He’d thought Uquwidi would make fun, but nobody did, and not even Et’oso said a word about it. There was a slow, sad-sounding song – tsobúpew tsa úle’egetowak, lamentation of the swallowing sands, Awaro had explained – that only Inis had sung and played; then another, with a strange tilt that reminded him a little of the songs he’d heard in Hox and a little of gkacha, and Ole sang in a strain of Tek he’d never heard before. Nobody had explained it, and Ole had disappeared into the tent shortly after.

He traces the line of a prodigium with his fingertip. He tears out a sheet from his own journal; it doesn’t line up perfect, but he can finish the prodigium on it, as fresh as it still is in his mind.

Warder is written in the sitting-space on the grim’s side, and on the other, he writes in: Possessed.

They finished on Safala. It wasn’t Nkemi who suggested it, this time; it wasn’t any one person. Et’oso first, maybe, and then Awaro, laughing raucously, and then everybody had chimed in. Even him, grinning, linking his arm in Nkemi’s and leaning close against the cutting night chill. His head had been full of the color orange, brilliant brilliant orange.

They had taken mercy on Safala, in the end: the final verse before the final chorus had him sleeping against the warm flank of a camel. Uqasah had lovingly described her long soft eyelashes, and the way her soft, fuzzy lips brushed over his scalp, tongue lapping at his hair.

By then, he had been half-delirious, just happy to be – alive?

He hadn’t seen Kafo or Anfe round the fire, and nor had he looked. Nor had he seen Ipiwo, though Ofero had slipped in for two bowls and then slipped out, diligent and tired-looking; he’d given them a smile, still, as he’d passed.

Trust? he finds written in what remains of his favorite ward. There is no answer underneath it, but it’s underlined several times.

Underneath it, tonight, he pens another in a shaky hand: Hope?

Somewhere, he thinks of Kafo sleeping in Anfe’s arms, and Anfe in Kafo’s. He sleeps dreamlessly.

Across the tent, she has been wrapped up in against the chill; she looks as if she’s sleeping like a rock, for all the world, and he knows dzesi’tsofe now when he sees it. He lies with his back to her, nestling his cheek into the scratchy wool, and sleeps dreamlessly.

The morning passes quickly. Not everyone’s in good spirits. The sleep doesn’t seem to’ve done Inis much good; her face is a knot, and she must make use of her stick until she mounts her camel. Ole isn’t in a fine mood, either, snapping at Et’oso he doesn’t have to use his flooding e efi úwey’dzúro ankle to ride a camel. Nkemi seems to have slept better, and though a ghost of dzesi’tsofe still hangs about her, kofi and lentil cakes seems to go a long way.

He saw Kafo once that morning, and offered him a smile; Anfe was not far off.

After yesterday’s Ever, he feels in higher hopes than he has in days. It’s hard to believe they’re in the last stretch; at the same time, it’s hard to believe that just a week ago, he was sitting in an office Uptown.

He does not ride in the wagon, today, despite the concerned looks. He’s bone-tired, aching all through, but he can’t do it; he can’t think of it. When he mounts, he makes a promise – without words – to take care with himself, with his water, to pay heed to his dizzy head and his living body, even as unsettling as it is.

He prays through the morning. He prays through the afternoon. He thinks of an orange in the sand, and tears like glass. He prays until he’s dreaming upright on his saddle, swaying, and when the wind picks up and brushes sand across them, he holds close and prays harder. He breathes even, counting to fours, until the dust passes.

And then, somewhere in the afternoon, without warning –

It’s just a shape, or a cluster of shapes in the dusty distance. He thinks he can feel it go through Nkemi; he reaches out to touch her shoulder, then offers his hand. “Nkemi,” is all he can say, grinning underneath his scarf. “Osi,” he says softly, playfully, and laughs.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Late Afternoon, 29 Bethas, 2720
The Outskirts of Dkanat

Dkanat.

Nkemi had strained her eyes since the landscape began to become familiar. They had left the dunes behind in the early afternoon, back to the cracked flatlands brushed with scrub and with small hills, here and there. Behind them the dunes crept closer, closer every year, the elders said, although only by a breath.

Sometimes she had found stillness and peace; sometimes she had found it in her to close her eyes. One breath closer, she thought, as Tsotusu swayed steadily beneath her, her head bobbing above the sands and then the scrublands, as the sun climbed steadily up, crowned overhead and began to descend.

Then - once and then again - she had wondered if she saw it there in the distance, there in the dimness, a hazy brush. Then, once and then again, she had known it for the trees, the wind, her heart’s hopes, and not itself. She had settled herself, and again, and let go of disappointment, and kept breathing.

When she saw it she knew it. There was no mistaking it for any mirage then; it went through her like a jolt, and she strained forward, one hand tight in the reins. She let go; Anetol eases forward and Nkemi laughed, joyful and breathless, and squeezed his hand in hers.

At first it is only a distant scattering of lumps, spaces here and there, square and squat against the rough ground. It swings out of sight behind a hill, and then emerges again, bigger and taller, the small streets which run through its heart discernible in the gaps, the cluster of houses large and small on either side. It is not only lumps, then, but the steady accumulation of figures in bright cloth, standing at the small stone fence which lines the edges of it, soft stones which gleam in colors like a dream.

“Nkemi!” There is a cry from the stones; a small figure brightly wrapped stretches out her arm and waves.

Nkemi laughs. “Juela!” She waves, too, straining, as if she could throw herself from Tsotusu’s back and run the last of the distance.

It passes endlessly; it passes in an instant. Tsotusu is kneeling and Nkemi is breathless, climbing off.

Nkese is there; tears are streaming down her cheeks. There are few lines in her face when she is still but she is not still now; she is smiling, and it is echoed through her cheeks and around her eyes. Her strong arms wrap around Nkemi and Nkemi buries her face in her mother’s shoulder, as she might have when she was a girl, and cries.

They are only a few, her breathless sobs, and she cannot be ashamed, not wrapped in the circle of her juela’s arms and the warm press of a caprise from belike static mona, Nkese whispering to her of love and understanding, holding her close and tight. Home, Nkemi thinks, and it thrums through her and beats in her chest. Home.

She sniffles; she pulls away and kisses her mother’s cheek, and Nkese runs a hand over hers. There are tear tracks down her mother’s cheeks, too, and they are both of them smiling.

“Juela,” Nkemi says, turning, her mother’s hand clasped in hers, “this is Anetol Vakelin. Anetol, I am very pleased for you to meet my mother, Nkese pezre Nkaya.”

“Sir,” Nkese says; she smiles, but her eyes linger curiously. She squeezes Nkemi’s hand in her strong, callused one; she bows, and rises to step forward, to take his hands in hers. She smiles. “Welcome to Dkanat,” she says, warm and firm.

There are noises all around them; there is a shrieking rush of them from Ofero and Ipiwo, Ipiwo’s family clustered around the wagon where Ofero helps her descend. Ipiwo is walking evenly, and if her face is creased in tiredness, she is smiling and laughing and tears leaking from her eyes are of joy, not pain.

Hadha is scooping up a small boy in both strong arms, tossing him into the air; he shrieks, and presses his face into his father’s beard. The camels are all seated now; Lefo, from the general store, is talking intently to Inis, gesturing with one hand and raised eyebrows. There is motion in the green wagon already, battered trunks streaming sand as they are brought out; Anfe is among the men moving with them, and Nkemi finds Kafo’s slim figure sitting in the shade not too distant.

Mostly, it is Nkese Nkemi looks at, and Anetol too; she smiles at him, smiles with her whole self, all of her bastly bubbling bright, even as a few more tears slide unrepentant down her cheeks.

[Tom Cooke]

The Outskirts of Dkanat • Eastern Erg

Late Afternoon on the 29th of Bethas, 2720

B
y the afternoon, he’s swaying; his long shirt is stuck to his back with the sweat. He didn’t trust his hand with a razor the night before, so he has a prickling feeling that tells him his face is dusted with orange. He’s entertained doubts, now and then – fears, even – about seeing Nkemi’s fami like this, sweat-stained and sagging off the bone.

When the cry goes up, he’s watching the bright-swathed dots gather at the edge of the cluster of silhouettes. One in particular, small and wiry, is throwing out its arms; and Nkemi’s crying out, too, and straining forward, as if the reaching will make Tsotosu’s ponderous, knobbly gait any faster.

For his own part, he’s barely time to drink all of it in. It passes in the blink of an eye. Moments ago, Dkanat was a few small dark lumps on the horizon, faded soft by the dust. Now, he can see the low rock wall, soft and strangely colorful; he can see where the street disappears round the bend of a stuccoed house, bright in the afternoon sun, and the shapes of taller, closer-set buildings behind it.

But it’s the people he sees, closer and closer, some spilling out past the wall, some shouting like the small figure of Nkemi’s juela. And then the camels are kneeling, and the two streams overflow their banks in a rush of color and noise.

He dismounts, stretching his stiff legs. He hears Nkemi’s breath hitch with a sob; a pair of wiry, strong arms is wrapped round her tightly, and the two women hold each other for a moment as he gains his bearings. He doesn’t let his eyes linger as they break away, as Nkemi kisses her mother’s cheek, both of their faces glistening with tears – but he smiles still, taking off his broad brim hat and tucking it under his arm.

Juela, she says, this is Anatole Vauquelin, and he looks over finally.

The first thing he notices is how much Nkemi favors her juela; side by side, it’s unmistakable, but he thinks he’d’ve been put in mind of her even if he hadn’t known. It’s not just the wrap, folds of crisp orange and turquoise and white, the sun brilliant in her head-wrap, the wind fluttering in its loose folds. Nkese pezre Nkaya has Nkemi’s small, dark face, and he thinks he can see the shadows of the smile lines – now spilling warmly round her mouth and glistening eyes – on her daughter’s face when she smiles.

He reaches out for a caprise and meets clear, competent, curious static mona; he brushes them respectfully – just mingling – then bows deeply, rising as she steps toward him.

He’s already caught a few eyes. One of the women from Tseq’ule, one of the ones whose name he never caught, rushes to gather a handful of bochi into her swishing skirts. A boy of five or six, at most, stops in his tracks as he rushes by – he looks at him with wide dark eyes until the rosh, laughing, goes and gets him.

The hands that take his are small like her daughter’s, but the rough calluses on the palms and the fingers take a different shape, and the backs are lightly traced with veins.

“Thank you, ada’na Nkese,” he says firmly, smiling up at her; he doesn’t linger on the hands she holds, or the flicker of a face he can see reflected in her eyes, though familiar guilts flutter through his mind like torn pages in the sand.

It’s still sound and light and color, all around. Behind, another flock of colorful figures clusters round a wagon; he can see a flash of Ofero’s face, a flash of Ipiwo’s, glistening with tears, and a woman in brocaded, deep purple silk.

Hadha’s boch is giggling, laughing in his arms; one of the woman’s, over a little distant, has started crying. She murmurs something in Mugrobi, soothing but half-laughing, and lifts the tiny girl into her arms. He catches sight of Kafo in the shadow of a tree not far off and smiles, though only briefly, and he doesn’t think he sees him.

Nkemi has told him a little of where he’s staying; she’s spoken fondly of ada’xa Emeka, the widower, and his daughters Jioma and Jinasa who run the inn, and the view of Dkanat and the canyons from the second floor. Still, they linger here, as the wagons are unloaded.

The whole crowd is bastly: it radiates off the galdori, the wicks, even the humans, through their faces and their laughter. It’s almost overwhelming, but he lets himself be overwhelmed.

“I’m honored by your welcome,” he says, smiling at ada’na Nkese, then at Nkemi, who’s wearing the tears on her cheeks proudly as her smile. “And by your daughter’s guidance and friendship. Please, call me – call me Anatole.” He’s smiling, too – whatever’s inside him is spilling his smile out onto the face he wears, and he’s pressing one of Nkese’s hands with these hands, and bowing again.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Late Afternoon, 29 Bethas, 2720
The Outskirts of Dkanat

Nkese glances back at her, and for all her smile warms at Anetol’s words, there is no surprise in her face. Nkemi smiles back at her, breathing in deep the smell of the dry dusty scrublands, the faint hint of warm spices drifting through the town, mingling with the smell of sweat drying on Tsotusu’s flank. Absently, she strokes the camel’s neck, warm with gratitude.

“Ahna-toll,” Nkese repeats, carefully; Nkemi finds there is a lump in her throat at the sound of her mother’s long desert vowels, her careful pronunciation of Anetol’s name. Nkemi smiles and leans against Tsotusu one last time before easing away.

Ipiwo is still upright, but her face is now heavy, and she sags, just a little. Ofero’s arm is beneath her; Kawero, her eldest brother, comes to her other side, and takes her arm there, and she walks more easily, then.

Aferat wears a deep, rich purple, and a high collar of delicate gold flings at her neck.She stands as straight and tall as ever; the rings on her hands flash in the evening light as she gestures to the green wagon. The two tall men lingering behind bow and go, wrestling out one trunk and then the other, both battered, and taking them each on a strong shoulder.

Nkese does not ask. Nkemi sees it, now; they are all of them drained, faced creased and dry, and ada’xa Inis most of all, although she holds herself upright with her staff. The wagons limp, just a little; there are two wheels on the green one newer than all the rest. Nkemi knows, too, how she must looks; she feels papery around her eyes, and though she has not this time checked a mirror, she knows how the skin darkens further, and sags heavy with tiredness. She can see it in the lines carved deep into Anetol’s face.

She feels, too, in her mother’s embrace, the weight of their delay.

The sun is sloping down, not yet setting but arcing slowly. Its setting is long, in the desert; Nkemi remembers it when she is away, but she glances at the long shadows and feels a light fluttering lifting up her field. The memories she carries with her are sweet, but to taste them afresh is to know joy.

“We are honored, too, by your friendship with our daughter,” Nkese says, looking at Anetol. “Anyone who is dear to her is dear, also, to us.” She bows, deeply, once more.

“It is well to rest after such a journey,” Nkese says. “But may I hope that tomorrow you will honor us by coming to our house for dinner?”

This, too, Nkemi has tried to imagine - Anetol, sitting at the big sturdy table in her mother’s house. She had been afraid once that it would look small, when she returned; it never has. She can picture him many places: straight-backed, looking across the room at True’Art with a glass of whisky in hand; in his study, perched on the edge of his chair and reading poetry to her; in a small wick restaurant in the Dives, eating vraun; on the edge of a campfire, mopping up chickpea stew with bread. She is grateful, now, for this further chance.

“We must pay our respects to Ada’na Inis,” Nkemi puts in with a smile.

Nkese nods, smiling. She reaches out; Nkemi takes her hands once more, and squeezes, tightly. Her mother takes her in her arms, and presses a kiss to her forehead. Nkemi feels a few more tears trickle down her cheeks, and those too she gladly wears.

Nkemi finds walking stiff and strange and uneasy; after the joy of the first few steps her legs ache all through, but she curls her arm through Anetol’s and helps him to find his steadiness. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Nkese set off towards the green wagon.

“An extra kilogram of rice, ada’na,” Lefo is saying in Mugrobi, “if you have any to spare? The rainy season will be on us soon; Dkanat then is deserted by caravans, abandoned and neglected. We call out like a child for his mother; only take mercy, ada’na, on our plight!” His tone is somber, but there is a smile on his plump face which tells Nkemi he has extra stores in his warehouse, this year. He is more than a foot taller then Inis, but Nkemi already knows that she will charge him a fair price - if she sells at all.

Nkemi does not interrupt. When the moment comes, she bows, deeply. “You have all honored our trust in you many times over,” she says, simply. For a moment her small face is somber, and then it lights in a grin. “And we are blessed to have had such a campfire!”

[Tom Cooke]

The Outskirts of Dkanat • Eastern Erg

Late Afternoon on the 29th of Bethas, 2720

H
e thinks, anyone who is dear to her? But who, after all, is dear to her?

But he smiles; he inclines his head, unable for a moment to find the words. Now he’s settled into hearing Nkese speak, he can hear it: he heard it in the way she said his name, barely dancing over the consonants, the vowels long as the shadows stretching over the flat streets.

It reminds him of the first time he noticed Nkemi’s accent, dulled but not – he realizes now – not in the least swallowed up by all her time in Thul Ka and abroad. He didn’t know, then, the quarter of how many ways the Mugrobi speak Estuan. He’s heard more now, all tangled up in the streets of Dejai Point and across the desert, galdor and human and wick, and the echoes of this accent have been here the whole time, lilting cheerily beside him.

“Yes,” he says warmly, firmly, and bows deeply. If he feels a flutter in his stomach, he doesn’t let it turn into a lump in his throat. “It would honor me as well, ada’na Nkese.”

Can he be honored? Can he honor? It seems a selfish, silly thought, looking across at Nkese’s face, happy – a little drawn, he thinks, with what’s unspoken – the dried paths of tears on her cheeks, where she hasn’t cared to wipe them away; he doesn’t think any more of it, of what may be sitting tomorrow in her fami’s home. Whatever is in him, whatever is behind this strange man’s face, sitting inside his aching bones, is grateful beyond words, and he uses that face to smile, and its eyes prickle with tears.

But it’s there, still, sitting alongside the warmth and gratefulness, one eye open so he knows it isn’t asleep.

Nkese pulls her daughter into another hug, kissing her forehead. He stands by Tsotosu, shifting his weight on tired hips, running a hand for the last time over her warm flank. “Ts’awa, on’oza,” he murmurs, looking curiously at one of Tsotosu’s patient dark eyes; the soft fuzzy lips flap, and the head tilts ponderously.

Nkese is heading back for the green-covered wagon. It’s been easier for him to look at, since he and Nkemi made their search through the sands; it’s still hard. But she’s looping her arm through his, helping him move on stiff legs toward where Inis is talking to a mant, round-faced natt.

She says something brusquely in Mugrobi, shaking her head. She’s bent lower today, and she has to crane her neck to look up at him.

A loud snap grabs his attention as he and Nkemi approach. Nearby, two natt are working at one of the wagon wheels, which seems to’ve slipped out of alignment; with her hands on her hips, Ole is cursing. She turns away at last, looking between ada’na Inis and the natt.

“Besides,” Inis says in Estuan, still leaning heavily on her stick, “we have still Tsod’iwaz, Efotsug, and Tsawo’dzameh before the Handprints, and we do not know whose path we will cross before then.” She begins to turn away, eyes catching on Nkemi.

The natt says something else in Mugrobi, running a plump hand along his jaw. His smile has grown a little pinched.

Slowly, Inis lifts an eyebrow; she exchanges a knowing glance with Nkemi, then turns. “Indeed? So much?” Then another flurry of Mugrobi; he knows haggling when he sees it. Eventually, Inis is grinning in all the tired lines on her face.

“Inis,” says Ole, faintly breathless, her voice uneven and harsh. She doesn’t look at either of them; she has eyes only for Inis. Inis meets her eye for a moment, then holds up a hand, bracelet flashing in the sun. She turns to Nkemi and inclines her head.

Carefully, he disentangles his arm from Nkemi’s, when the time comes; he bows too, low as he can, and only needs a little help pulling himself up to his height.

Inis bows back, holding onto her stick, then grins.

“The campfire was lucky to have the both of you, ada’na Nkemi and Mr. Vohkulain,” she says, her eyes sparking, “but if my playing brought you joy, I am only the more grateful – and honored.” She pauses; her eyes linger on Nkemi for a moment. “You have honored our trust – and repaid it,” she says slowly, face more somber.

Ole stands straight, her arms crossed over her chest. She’s frowning, but she bows too, after a moment. “Domea, ada’na, sir,” she says.

“May Roa bless you and your fami in the coming days.” Inis smiles again. “I hope our paths cross again; if not, may both your maw be long and full of Her light.”

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Late Afternoon, 29 Bethas, 2720
The Outskirts of Dkanat

Lefo’s smile is grimmer by the time he yields, and Inis’s is warmer. He smiles over her head at Nkemi before he goes, inclining his head lightly; she inclines hers in response. He is a man who is firm in his prices; he is a man who feeds himself well, and his family too, but never once has there been a rumor of his thumb on the scale.

There are no prefects in Dkanat, to investigate such faults if they occur. Nkemi grew up with an understanding of justice, but a different knowledge of its enforcement. People – humans, galdori, and wicks – are the same everywhere, but their circumstances differ. It was not that there was nothing to fear in Dkanat; it was not that no merchant would dare to set his thumb on the scale. It was only that if he did it would be known, with no intercession by prefects or courts. Sometimes this has seemed to Nkemi more just; sometimes it has seemed less.

Hadha’s son is curled over him, his legs wrapped around his father’s waist and his cheek resting on his shoulder. It is not Aswa, his wife, who speaks with him, but Anko, his worn face grave, and his voice low. Anko’s gaze flickers to the caravan; Hadha nods, lightly. His son he sets down, though the little boy trails after him, clinging with his fingertips to his father’s long shirt. Anko follows after, his gait uneven from the twist of his foot but his steps steady nonetheless, the frown which he wears on his forehead heavy.

“May Roa bless your journey, in all its forms,” Nkemi says, honestly; she smiles at Inis. “Whenever I hear the name Tseq’ule, I will send a prayer on the behalf of you and yours to the Circle; I hope it may be often, and that all our years in the desert shall be long.”

“Ada’na,” Hadha says; he bows, as does Anko. “May I introduce Ada’xa Anko pez Pifre?”

“Perhaps you remember me, ada’na,” Anko says, inclining his head. He nods, as well, to Nkemi, and she nods back. His gaze flicks out over the landscape, and then settles back on Inis, on Ole, on the wagons. “The sun hangs her head heavy in the sky. Ones who is not pressed for time may wish to linger as the mouse does beneath the shade of the branches, when he senses a spider may be near. If you and yours feel the same – my flock is distant, and I would be glad to offer you space in the fenced enclosure behind my house.”

Nkemi draws Anetol away; her gaze lingers a moment, and a moment more on Anko’s face, listening between the lines of his words. She turns, then; they go back towards the green-cloth covered wagon, passing along the line of camels sitting and lipping softly at the ground.

Nkese stands at the edge of the wagon already; Nkemi’s trunk is set beside her, and Anetol’s next to it, having been lifted out and set together. Both are battered and dusty, but looped closed now, and neither splintered at the edges.

Nkemi comes; she lifts one edge of her trunk, and Nkese the other, and they carry it off to the side, and set it down next to the low wall of stones, out of the way of the wagons and men of the caravans. Between the two of them, it is easy to lift, although the trunk is unwieldy for either to manage alone.

Anetol has his soft bag, which, too, is strapped shut. Nkemi goes to one end of his trunk, and Nkese the other; there is no need for words between them, and the two crouch and lift in easy unison.

“You are ready?” Nkemi asks Anetol with a bright smile. It is a question which must be asked but can rarely be answered. She asks all the same; this too is the beginning of a journey, though they have already crossed the desert.

[Tom Cooke]

The Outskirts of Dkanat • Eastern Erg

Late Afternoon on the 29th of Bethas, 2720

N
kemi speaks truth, he knows, even now, when such things are expected; he wasn’t sure what to say, before, but – “As will I, ada’na Inis,” he says, inclining his head again, thinking it won’t be so hard to make truth of that. Tseq’ule he’ll remember, and he’ll remember praying in the dark, too, and casting invocations; he’ll remember most of all singing of lost things round the fire, his arm looped through Nkemi’s.

There’s not much more time. Hadha is there, a boy tottering close beside him, and with him comes a man he doesn’t know. There’s something grave about their faces, Hadha’s stony behind his beard; he introduces the other natt – Anko, he says – in Estuan, and Inis’ smile only warms as she stoops for another bow.

He and Nkemi are turning away. The older man’s speaking Mugrobi, long and lilting with Nkese’s same accent; he pauses now and then, careful. Dzum, he says; later, apút. The last glimpse he gets of Inis’ face is her lips pressed together. Behind her, Ole’s eyes widen slightly, so the light just glints off the whites amidst her dark kohl. Then they narrow.

Nkemi’s dark eyes are sharp on Anko, but they don’t linger long. He thinks to look questioningly at her, but he’s not sure he should. She says nothing about it; they’re walking, then. Inis speaks Mugrobi, but her voice is a blur behind them, and the moment is passed.

Each step’s heavy; his legs feel strained. He skims the wagons for Kafo, but he’s not in the shade anymore, not anywhere he can see. Anfe is nodding to another of the humans just by the red-covered wagon, where the wheel slipped; his scarred face looks troubled.

There’s too much to hold in his head. It feels full of sand, the wind whisking it softly. A thought might take shape, only to be covered; he might make out a few letters, a half a letter, then nothing, hopping one to the next. The guilt slips between his fingers, or that of it he can make sense of – the feeling is there, always there, but it’s mute and wordless, only a rumble beneath the earth, a texture rather than a sound or a sight.

And when he sees Nkese’s bright headscarf fluttering in the breeze, he smiles; he’s not sure why, but he feels a warmth spreading through him. He’s not sure whether it started in his field or Nkemi’s, and it doesn’t matter.

Nkemi leaves him to join her mother among the trunks, which’ve been carried out and set in the dirt. He’s going and getting his smaller bag when he sees them pick up Nkemi’s trunk; he blinks, watching them carry it over.

His head hasn’t wrapped itself round it ‘til they’re back for his. He’s standing beside it, glancing among the wagons, thinking if he can pick it up himself, wondering if he ought to – but then Nkemi and Nkese are there, one on either side, the warm mingling of clairvoyant and static mona and a polite brush of clear static like an echo.

“Ada’na,” he says softly to Nkese; he doesn’t want to be in the way, but he thinks – “please, ada’na, Nkemi, let me…”

His protests are swallowed up, dzu’tsogiq; they pass out of sight like pages fluttering off in the breeze. There’s a faint pinch in Nkese’s face, but he thinks to chrove more about it – or offer to help – would be of less help than not helping at all. He doesn’t know what he thought would happen, being honest, but the motion seems natural to Nkese, and Nkemi is looking at him with a glowing smile and an old question.

Is he ready? For what? It’s either a merciful question, for all its vagueness, or the most challenging of all to answer honestly; he’s never figured it out, and he doesn’t think Nkemi minds.

“Yes,” he replies, smiling tiredly at the two women, and if it isn’t true, he will make it so.

He walks alongside them, wide-legged stiff, leaving the stone wall behind. They pass into the shadows of the first houses on the outskirts. In a pen, hens trot about, pecking at seeds; a woman sitting on a stoop outside brightens at the sight of them – of Nkemi – from afar, grinning broadly and calling something in Mugrobi.

It isn’t far to the inn, but the way seems full of greetings. Outside one house, a little lass in a bright-colored dress crouches, drawing in the dirt with a stick; she looks up and stares at him as they pass, wide-eyed, and then sees Nkemi, and nearly shrieks – she starts to run toward them, but a slim, bearded man calls to her from a doorway, and waves at Nkemi and Nkese. Once, they pass under a dark window, and it’s suddenly full of faces: two wide-eyed bochi, a round-faced woman with a bright red smile, a teenage girl leaning halfway out to wave.

The inn is two stories; the sun behind it throws its long shadow over the street, almost to the cluster of small houses on the other side. The stucco is textured like flowers, robin’s-egg blue, and the awning is a ruffling stretch of red.

There’s movement inside one of the windows. A man spills out of the open door, only a little taller than Nkese and much older; his snow-white hair is close-cropped, and he pulls at his beard. A larger human follows him, grinning, arms outstretched. “I will take it, ada’na Nkese, pea. Ada’na Nkemi, tsanúg udúqaperwelcome home,” he says, and then raises both eyebrows when his eyes alight on him. “Welcome, sir!”

The human is carrying in the trunk easily; inside, he can hear women laughing. “Careful!” one shouts in Estuan, and then a crash, and then a flurry of Mugrobi.

As the elderly man nears, he feels the brush of a clairvoyant field, sharper than most. “I am Emeka pez Idowu,” he says in a clipped, scratchy voice as he rises. Emeka bows, and he bows back; the bow is brief, and his caprise briefer.

He turns to Nkemi. There’s a deep, angry frown written into his thin face, and he’s still pulling at the wisp of his beard, staring at her as if his eyes are riffs.

Then he smiles, and stretches his skinny bare arms wide. “Nkemi, Nkemi,” he says, shuffling closer, “dom’bali? Why has it been so long?”

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Late Afternoon, 29 Bethas, 2720
The Heart of Dkanat

They go.

It is not her trunk, but it is no heavier, and the familiarity of it sings to Nkemi through the tiredness. The first few years Ifran would come, too, when he could; he would wait on the other side of the wall, and never rush to the camels and the rest, never put himself in the midst of the noise. But he would be there, and he would hold her, tightly, and he would take one end of the trunk and Nkese the other, and Nkemi all which remained, and they would go the three of them.

In later years - now - she sees him at home, and she knows he will have heard the noise of the caravan, that kofi will be brewing hot on the stove and there will be something for her to eat warming, and he will still hold her, tightly. Nkemi does not remember which trip it was she who held the other end of the trunk first; she remembers being proud to carry it with her mother, proud enough that it carried her through all the long steps down dusty streets, proud enough to cut through the tightness of a long camel ride.

These are not the only burdens she and Nkese have lifted together; there are many such, around them house. Even as a girl, even before Thul’Amat, Nkemi would go with her mother to Lefo’s store, to carry back a basket of onions or potatoes; even when her hands were too small to lift much she would go, and carry back even one vegetable at her mother’s side.

Anetol’s trunk is not too heavy, not with her mother’s bright head wrap at the other end, and Anetol walking slowly beside, his breathing only a little strained.

“Dzewo!” Nkemi calls, face bright, as they pass the neat house with the chickens scratching outside. “Watch the spotted one!” The hen is reaching out for her neighbor; there is a flurry of squawking and a burst of feathers, and she and Nkese and Dzewo all laugh.

“Good afternoon Jeela!” Nkemi smiles bright-eyed at the little girl in the colorful dress, bigger every time Nkemi sees her. “Good to see you, Aafu,” she says to her father, who is barely older than she is, and who was always kind to her when they were children across an invisible line.

“A gift from Hulali!” Nkemi is almost breathless by the time they reach Efreta’s window, but she has breath enough to laugh and smile, to reach bastly with a caprise across the short distance.

“Be good, girls!” Nkese says, smiling, and there is a chorus of giggling obedience.

When Dhafed takes the trunk it is still a relief; Nkemi stands, easily and upright. “Such welcomes makes it so,” she says. Nkese wraps an arm around her and Nkemi smiles at her mother.

She bows, deeply, to Emeka. She remembers the feeling of his clairvoyant field across distances and years; it did shock her, when she first came back from Ire’dzosat and she found she could understand within the sharpness, that she could feel familiarity and withstand the strength of the caprise. As ever, he is swift and brutal, but Nkemi meets him with the lingering echo of the spell she cast a day ago, and reaches back.

He smiles then and shuffled closer. Nkemi laughs and greets him properly. “The sun may rise only once per day,” she tells him, smiling wide.

“Ada’xa,” Nkese says, smiling.

“Ada’na,” Emeka says, smiling at her as well. “Please, Ada’xa Vauquelin,” he says the Anaxi name with a smoothness, for all that his vowels are as long otherwise as Nkemi’s and Nkese’s. “Come in, come in. Ada’na Nkese has a gift for asking; the view from your room is a gift from Dkanat to the world.”

Nkemi steps inside, dusty sandals padding softly against the floor.

“Nkemi!” Jioma wipes her hands in her apron. She is older than Nkemi by a decade; there are the beginnings of lines at the corners of her eyes, stretching up like her smile. “Ada’na Nkese,” she says. “Ada’xa Vahkeelin,” she bows, reaching out with a caprise of faint perceptive mona. “I am Jioma pezre Jiwaya. Welcome to our place; may we be able to offer you the comforts of home. At least there is a bath, and dinner when the sun has crept a little closer to the horizon.”

“Jiowa!” Nkemi says, pleased. “It is a blessing to see you looking well.”

Nkemi takes Anetol’s hands in hers and smiles at him. “Will I disturb you if I come to visit later?” She asks. “You will be well cared for by the hands of Emeka, Jiowa and Jinasa, but I thought we might talk of tomorrow.”

There is a grunt from Emeka at her comment about caring hands; he is tugging at his beard once more.

[Tom Cooke]

The Outskirts of Dkanat • Eastern Erg

Late Afternoon on the 29th of Bethas, 2720

M
a’ralio, ada’na Jioma,” he says, a surprised smile still lingering on his face from the word ada’xa. A little bastly creeps out into his field before it disappears into the warmth of all their caprises; he bows deeply, tucking his hat under his arm where he took it off when he came in. “I’ll be honored to call this place home, ada’na Jioma, ada’xa Emeka, while I stay in Dkanat.”

Round a corner not far off, hung with bright cross-stitched patterns, there’s a sound of footfalls on stairs. A woman says something in Mugrobi, then, “None of our concern, Dhafed…”

Nkemi takes his hands; he turns and smiles down. “Not in the least,” he says, squeezing them gently in his.

Nkese lingers near the door, the sunlight from outside trickling in around her; she and Emeka are talking. From afar, like this, it’s even more clear – in the colors the light makes in her skin, in the way it plays off the bright colors of her clothes; in the shape of her smile, in the little gestures of the way she talks, the way she tilts her head or her eyebrows or the motion of a hand, even if the canvas it’s painted on is slightly different.

The absence hasn’t escaped his notice, amid all this. She must, he thinks, be looking forward to going home. He turns back to Nkemi. “Come anytime,” he says. “I’ll get settled, but I look forward to it. I suspect there’s much to discuss.”

As Nkemi and her mother take their leave, Dhafed’s coming back down the stairs, shrugging his big shoulders underneath his light shirt; he grins. “Jinasa will show you to your room, Mr. Voklin,” he says.

Behind him comes another woman, shorter and rounder than ada’na Jioma, and maybe half a decade younger. She’s frowning, her brows drawn together; she’s eyes only for Jioma ‘til she sees him, and then something like a reluctant smile finds its way to her face. “Ah, ada’xa Vakeelin,” she says, bowing deeply, and brushing him with a field of clairvoyant mona not unlike her father’s.

Jioma and Jinasa exchange glances before she guides him up. She’s quiet up the narrow steps, though she offers him her hand, firm and steady, on the worn third and fourth steps. Behind, muffled by the wall, he can hear Emeka’s scratchy voice in Mugrobi, Jioma’s troubled tones.

For all the heat outside, the walls are high, and the light that spills in doesn’t press with the weight of the sun. The hall Jinasa guides him down is full of the breeze, latticed windows at either end throwing shapes of light and criss-cross shadows over the colorful carpet. As they walk, some of the weight on her seems to lighten.

“I do not know,” she says, with a brusque tone not unlike her father’s, but with a smile too, “what you are accustomed to, ada’xa. If you should need anything…”

Jioma wasn’t lying when she spoke of the view. Most of the rooms are adjacent to a larger room, with a long, low wooden table; the hearth, Jinasa explains matter-of-factly, as if he’ll protest, is downstairs – they take their kofi there, though Tsasú’ki or Dhafed may bring it upstairs, if one is not inclined for company. The upstairs dining room has the biggest window, which gives out over the nearest rooftops and then to the east, where the sun catches on the faces of the tallest buildings toward the center of the town, the greenery that spills over their parapets, carefully-tended. In the distance, glimpsed in-between, the landscape takes different shapes, casts long shadows.

Other than the fami, there isn’t much company, he notices, peering into the empty rooms with their clean-made beds as she winds round to his. There’s a key, this time – he thought there would be – and the room is small, but the window gives out on the same view, and the sill is thick with plants that shiver in the breeze, hung with chimes that tinkle softly.

The evening passes in a haze.

The first floor bath is small but colorful, the walls elaborately painted and textured, a swirl of color underfoot; the high narrow windows are latticed so thickly that they let in little more than light and breeze. Tsasú’ki, a tall, skinny woman a decade and some older than Anatole, brings in the hot water with Jinasa’s help. This time, he helps, too, though he cannot do much.

When he’s by himself, he disrobes as he always does, peeling away the grimy layers of his journey – quick, quiet, not looking anywhere but up at the high ceiling. He climbs in on aching limbs, sinks into the hot water listening to the sound of children outside.

He catches hushed conversations in Mugrobi in the hall outside, fleeting, Tsasú’ki’s voice and Dhafed’s. “But why?” Dhafed asks, laughing, shaking his head.

Tsasú’ki replies in tired Mugrobi, and the voices flicker out.

He tries not to fall asleep in the water; it’s fair difficult, but he doesn’t want to be a poor guest, though Jinasa has told him he may take the time he needs. When he crawls out of the bath, he feels boneless; he wraps himself in clean clothes, green and deep dark blue this time, with the last scarf – the one that isn’t bloodied – over his shoulders.

Upstairs, in his room, there’s a washbasin and a small mirror. He still doesn’t trust his hands, so he looks at Anatole’s face in it, greying stubble on his sharp narrow jaw. He’s too tired to feel much of anything, so he lies down for a little while and gives himself away to the dark.

Outside, the light is dying; what spills into the room is gold and amber, and the smells of food cooking drift up, more unfamiliar smells.

He finds his way down, this time; Tsasú’ki is preparing a tray, and old Emeka – to his surprise – is taking the lid off the pot, pulling at his wispy beard as steam drifts up, his long apron stained with powdery spices. Jioma moves about in the kitchen with him, and all of them look up when he comes in.

Tsasú’ki helps him carry the tray upstairs, with its dark green stew and what looks like thick rice porridge. By then, the wind has picked up, and the walls are chilly underneath his fingertips; the lamps here aren’t phosphor, and they cast shivering shapes over the walls. The offer is made – there’s a place for him with Jioma and Jinasa and Emeka, if he wishes – and he shakes his head, with the promise of soon.

So he sits at the low table by the great window, watching the street below for shapes.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Evening, 29 Bethas, 2720
The Heart of Dkanat

The light which spilled through the kitchen window was clear, at first. It darkened as the hours wore by, slanted gold and pink and finally depeended to red. The kofi was bitter, but balanced with a pinch of sugar and a pinch of menda, and above all else familiar, the rich deep taste of home, cultivated over the years in careful patches of shade, fed with precious water.

There was food, too, and the making of it, Nkemi’s hands alongside Nkese’s at the counter, rolling out lumps of dough into misshapen flatbreads until her mother laughed, and her father watching them from the table, smiling, even in the moments when no one looked at him to see it.

Nkemi bathed, too, scrubbing herself clean in the moments as the last of the stew came together, chickpeas and greens and a pinch of onion powder. The orange sat proud in the middle of the table, in a bowl all its own; Nkese had taken it in her hands and breathed the smell in deep, and in the bath Nkemi bent her face to her knees and held that moment close, treasured it, and did her best to fix it always in her mind.

Dinner left her full; there were chores, afterwards, a routine which did not stop for even her arrival. Nkemi went to check on the goats as her mother boiled the milk, and Ifran scrubbed the pots and dishes in the sink. She lost herself amidst them a little while, to soft head butting against her thighs and the prick of tiny hooves against her lap, at little teeth which nibbled curiously at the soft cloth of her shirt and pants.

By the time she had changed again and set back down the winding path that led through the scrublands to the edge of Dkanat, even the red had faded from the sky, and left behind it a glowing deep blue where the sun had gone; stars were scattered across the other end of the sky.

There were lanterns flickering in the town, but they were few enough. Nkemi had left only one behind at home, in the kitchen where her mother whisked the yogurt together and her father held his shirt inside out in one hand, carefully stitching up the seam. Her heart, Nkemi thought, too, beat there alongside them.

“Nkemi!” Ojala waved at her from the front step where she, Peya and Nereka sat. Nkemi went over, smiling, glad to greet them all, crouching in the dust in clean shoes.

“Don’t wander too late,” Nereka said, forehead pinched and her eyebrows raising. “Adhan says he saw a Dzevizawa campfire not two days ago, barely a day’s walk from here.” She spits on the ground; they all echo her.

“They won’t come to the village,” Peya says, her face twisting; she shakes her head, her soft glamour drawn close against her. “They’re half wild anyway.” She glances at the other women; Ojala smiles, and something eases in the set of her shoulders.

“I will take care,” Nkemi promises, solemn. She glances up at the horizon, though there is nothing there now but the sky. “It is good to see all of you; I am grateful for it.” She smiles again; they smile too, and Nkemi rises and keeps on down the street.

She doesn’t knock at Emeka’s door; there is no need, from the sounds within. Nkemi enters, and smiles brightly. Jioma gestures up the stairs, and after a few cheerful greetings Nkemi goes, her legs aching with each step, but not more than she can bear.

She smiles at the sight of Anetol; her field is more soft than bastly, tonight, and it melts into his with a warm caprise. Nkemi sits cross-legged in a chair next to him, turning to look out the window at the soft dark shapes of the town below, almost indistinguishable against the desert lands, and the spray of stars overhead, without even a cloud to hint at what’s to come.

“I am glad,” Nkemi says, softly, when they have sat in quiet caprising for a moment, “that you are here.”