[Closed] A Buried and a Burning Flame

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Early Evening, 30 Bethas, 2720
Nkese and Ifran's Home, the Outskirts of Dkanat

Nkese waits until Ifran and Anetol have both started eating; Nkemi sees her mother exhale, the tiniest motion, when Anetol takes the fritter in his fingers without a qualm, when he drags it through the lighter of the two sauces.

They are both with goat milk yogurt; Nkemi thinks he must know it by now, because Emeka buys his milk from Nkese, and Jioma boils and skims it to yogurt herself. These batch Nkese has strained, and it is thicker than what she might serve for breakfast, thick and tangy, standing up to the pinch of spices in the milder version, and even to the heat of the chilis.

“Thank you,” Nkese’s smile warms her face when Anetol praises the fritter, and she smiles back at him as gladly as he smiled at her. The whole table is calmer, now, and it is the sound of fingers gently tearing, of chewing, with no more strange clanking or stifled breaths.

it is the sound of fingers gently tearing, of chewing, with no more strange clanking or stifled breaths.

“It is a special place,” Nkese says, firmly. “Both the town and this house.” She glances across the table at Ifran; Nkemi does not quite look over, but she can see them both, and she sees the small, answering smile on her father’s face, a flicker at the mouth and the corner of the eyes.

“In fact,” Nkese says, smiling at Anetol, “Nkemi followed in my steps when she was born in this house. It was older even than my father, but he is the one who made it ours.” There is a softness to her eyes; she takes another piece off her fritter, and dips it gently through the hotter of the two sauces, taking a bite.

Nkemi takes another piece of her fritter, dipping it as well, and nibbles at it.

“She has written also to us much of Vienda,” Nkese goes on, cheerfully. “It is very hard to imagine such a place! I worried very much that it would be a block of ice which returned, and not my daughter.”

Nkemi giggles, easily; she smiles at her mother, who smiles back, scrunching up her face. Nkese wipes her hand on her cloth, and reaches around the side of the table, cupping Nkemi’s cheek lightly.

“Juela,” Nkemi says, giggling again. Her hand comes up, cupping Nkese’s, and squeezes lightly.

“Now that you have seen Dkanat, you can see how strange it must be for us to think of a city covered in snow,” Nkese says, smiling at Anetol. “The weather is much like this most of the year, but that it is hotter sometimes, and when the winds or rains come. I saw snow once, in Thul Ka, but only once.”

“At Thul'Amat?” Nkemi asks, smiling, eyes wide. She does not know this story; she wonders that this can be so.

“Yes,” Nkese says, cheerfully; the faintest pulse of bastly energy runs through her field, as warm around her as it is around Nkemi. The caprise is comfortable between them at the table, and her field settles easily enough into Anetol’s, though they are far from belike. She rises once more; she serves each of them another fritter, using her spoon and fork once more, and Anetol the ninth, the last one from the platter.

“During my student days, many, many years ago,” Nkese says. She smiles at Anetol. “You must have visited our university by now? I attended Tsu’un, for I had then a great love of philosophy and poetry both. But in my studies of the static conversation, once, we all in chorus cast a spell to make snow.”

Nkemi giggles again; her whole face lights up. She thinks she can imagine it; she thinks she knows well how her mother must have looked, as a girl, for she has known many mirrors.

“It was very cold,” Nkese says, eyes sparkling, “and damp! Even all together, we could not make it so cold that it did not melt the moment it brushed us.” She shook her head, lightly; the smile on her face is warm and fond with remembrance.

[Tom Cooke]

Nkese and Ifran's Home • On the Edge of Dkanat

Evening on the 28th of Bethas, 2720

I
t isn’t that he thought the house was Ifran’s, just because – but, he supposes, he hadn’t thought at all. He smiles again at Nkese, wondering at the softness in her eyes; he glances up and around at the soft flickering candlelight, down at the tablecloth and the unused but beautiful fork and spoon and knife.

He understands a little more. More, he thinks, and more, and more, picturing the fine Hoxian rug in the entry hall, traced with patterns luminous and rich in the dark.

Nkemi is giggling, now, Nkese reaching to put one small hand on her cheek. He doesn’t laugh, but he smiles down at his fritter as he tears off another bite. He pictures the tiny figure all piled up with scarves and sweaters he met in his parlor, but then he thinks of bruises purpling and yellowing at her throat. He doesn’t think of it long, because Nkese’s smiling at him again, and the thought of what might’ve been is unbearable.

He raises his eyebrows with slight surprise. “Ah – thank you, ada’na,” he says, as the last of the fritters goes to him, still clever-handled with the fork and the spoon; he smiles as she sits again. “I have. We hadn’t much time, but Nkemi was kind enough to show me the Walk, and some of Ire’dzosat and Ivuq’way.”

Nkemi laughs again as Nkese goes on. He looks over at her once to see her grinning broadly, bright-eyed, bastly as the gold that threaded briefly through their three fields. He remembers the air thin and hot as a door chain freezes and snaps.

He understands it’s hard to make snow at the best of times, even if it’s fair cold. Tricky to balance the heat that spellcasting makes, which can warm up even a chilly day, which can – in some cases – evaporate falling snow and burn scars into skin.

The thought of a group of Thul’amat students trying anyway brightens the smile on his face. It seems like something Nkemi might’ve done in her student days, if she’d been so inclined.

There’s nothing belike between him and Nkese, but he thinks he can feel the clairvoyant mona in his field drawn to something familiar in her static; her caprise is different, but not wholly different, from her daughter’s. He looks over at Ifran once or twice politely, and doesn’t let himself wonder too much. He can’t read the look on his face except for the hint of a smile sometimes round his eyes, but he thinks the set of his shoulders is a little more relaxed.

The strong tangy goatsmilk yoghurt offsets the heat of the chilis, but not enough he’s not feeling it by now. He knows he must be reddening a little, but he doesn’t much care; it’s easier now than it was even a week ago, and he’s not drinking his water too fast, though he clears his throat occasionally.

“It was snowing, wasn’t it, Nkemi,” he’s saying after a moment, tearing off a wedge of his second fritter, “on the equinox?” He pauses, hesitant, but Nkese’s story has melted some of what held him stiff; if his posture is straight, it’s only because it’s comfortable, and his legs are crossed underneath the table. “We went to a festival…”

His voice strengthens as he goes on, looking between the three of them, smiling warmly. It’s the dog he speaks of, mostly, how Nkemi found it and how it followed them through the dance, and how it found its lad. “So it might’ve been that your daughter returned with a little dog, ada’na, ada’xa,” he laughs softly.

He doesn’t expect Ifran to speak, much; he doesn’t think the old man minds their talk. He’s strangely grateful for him sitting here, with his watchful eyes and his crisp white scarf and the quiet air all around him, brushed nevertheless by warm clairvoyant and static mona.

“I haven’t yet been to Tsu’un, ada’na, but I plan to sit in on a few lectures, if I can.” He wipes his hands off on his napkin and takes a sip of water. “I’m a great admirer of poetry,” he adds, a little sheepishly.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Early Evening, 30 Bethas, 2720
Nkese and Ifran's Home, the Outskirts of Dkanat

This look too, Nkemi knows; her father smiles at her mother from across the table, and there is a softening of the lines which have formed where he frowns; the spiderwebs at the sides of them arch up, too, and the softness draws back through them. She knows Nkese sees it too – she knows this look her mother knows, and something of how dear she holds it – and she can almost see her mother glow with the warmth of it, in the flickering candle flames.

Nkemi turns to Anetol and smiles at him, when he speaks of the festival. “Yes,” she says, giggling, thinking of soft white flakes scattered from the sky, of small hot cups of spiced wine in clay, of a white tail shaking so hard the dog’s entire rump followed behind.

Nkemi does not tell him that she wrote to Nkese of this festival in Ophus, a long note; this was the note where she first told her mother that she hoped to come for a visit in Bethas, however uncertain the plans. She had written of Anetol by then, as she had written of other Seventen, of the young people she met at Brunnhold, of the scattered handful of Mugrobi she met in Vienda.

She did not tell her mother of the palm reader, of the word kalika; she is glad, now, that Anetol does not go so far. She wonders if he remembers the talk they had, sitting on the stoop as they fed meat to the dog and ate the vegetables off the skewer; she wonders if he understands more now, or less.

“A good dog!” Nkese says, staunchly; she is smiling. She says nothing, either. There is no need; Anetol’s words fill in the gaps. Nkemi had mentioned the dancing, but he paints it vivid. She remembers him, watching from the sidelines with a soft smile on his face; she remembers taking his hand and drawing him into the mix of it, and the bastly glow that raced through their fields. He is smiling now, like an echo of it.

“I am glad he found his boy,” Nkese says; it is Nkemi she smiles at, now, once more.

Nkemi smiles back; she remembers the slight, shaking figure. “As am I,” she says. She takes off another bite of her fritter.

Ifran, too, is smiling, sitting easily.

Nkese smiles at Anetol. “You will be like a hungry man at a feast,” she says, cheerful and encouraging. “Do you like Mugrobi poetry? You will find many sorts of lectures at Tsu’un; unless things have changed greatly, it is not only our own work we teach, but this, perhaps, is what we do best.”

When they have finished the last of the fritters, Nkese rises once more. Nkemi comes up too, without needing asking; she takes the platter for her mother, and they go together into the kitchen.

Ifran watches them from his seat; he has wiped his hands clean, and they are folded now in his lap. His face is neutral, even now, though something of the smile lingers about his eyes. Nkemi glances back from past the doorway to see him turning to Anetol, quiet and solemn.

“You have visited Serkaih today?” Nkemi hears him ask, quiet; there is a rasping about his throat, very faint, but he does not clear it away.

Nkese’s hand brushes her arm, then, and Nkemi goes, following her mother down the hall. The kitchen is warm and full of the smell of spices; Nkese takes the heavy pot from the stove, scooping spoonfuls of the warm spiced mixture of goat, onion, tomatoes, spices and more into the serving platter. There is a bowl already of stewed potatoes, carrots and cabbages. Nkemi goes herself to the breads under a cloth, and lays them out one by one.

“Thank you, ire’o,” Nkese says, quietly; she brushes Nkemi’s cheek with her lips.

She goes before Nkemi can say anything; Nkemi stands, just a moment, the platter of flatbreads in her hands. She looks down; she can see the ones she rolled, with the strange edges of their sides, and the smooth, even ones her mother has made. She smiles, then; she swallows through the lump, and catches Nkese in the hall.

They enter the dining room, one after the other, Nkese carrying the heavy platter, Nkemi with the flatbreads and vegetables, and set all of it out on the table.


“Ahna-toll, your plate please?” Nkese says, cheerfully. She extends her small, callused hands to him, insistent. “You shall tell me how much you like,” she says, beginning to serve him.

[Tom Cooke]

Nkese and Ifran's Home • On the Edge of Dkanat

Evening on the 28th of Bethas, 2720

I
t’s something about the way Nkese says good dog, her smile filling up the whole of her face; it’s something about the way she smiles at Nkemi, then, and Nkemi smiles back, not like a mirror, but belike enough to tighten something in his heart and loosen his tongue all at once.

Ifran has been smiling, too; he doesn’t notice until he glances over the last time, and he knows a little something of how to read a face that doesn’t often smile, or doesn’t smile when it smiles. It’s not a reflection of Nkese’s or Nkemi’s, and not at all belike, except for a familiar fold about the eyes.

And then Nkese asks him if he likes Mugrobi poetry.

It’s something about all this, that makes it easy to speak; it flows out of him, as true as anything he can ever say. So they speak, finishing up the last of their fritters. He can’t hide the warmth in his voice when he speaks of Tsadi pezre Awameh, though he doesn’t speak of imbali poetry in particular, and mentions Dzih pez Utiqa and others.

“... about Ezem pezre Iqeyiqar. I’ve never read her work,” he admits, wiping his hands off after the last bite of his fritter. “The lecturer is Isúun pezre Dzuyú – perhaps you know her, ada’na?”

Nkese stands, and Nkemi follows, sweeping the platter – empty of all but crumbs – off the lovely tablecloth before he realizes what they’re doing. He feels the last brush of Nkemi’s caprise, and then nothing, though she pauses a moment in the doorway; for a second, after Ifran turns back, he can see two pairs of thoughtful, wide dark eyes, though one pair is watching Ifran.

Then, he’s alone at the table with Nkemi’s jara. He tries not to tense; he’s not sure what it is he fears, or if fear’s the word for what he feels at all. One of his forearms rests on the table, hand relaxed, and he meets Ifran’s solemn look with the same smile he’s worn for the last few minutes.

The old man’s lilting Estuan is rough around the edges. “Yes, ada’xa,” he says rightaway, nothing but the truth; then pauses.

Ifran’s look is intent. His clean, smooth whites remind him of a tsorerem – or a tochyusem – he doesn’t know which, after all, he is, or what the difference is, though he knows there is one. He thinks he might tell him he’s spent some of the time in the archives; he might skim the waters of what’s brought him here, as he did with Professor Natete, and there’s a compliment and an idle question about Serkaih’s special collections ready on his tongue.

He knows this watchful look, but he doesn’t know the mind behind the eyes. He thinks of Nkemi, pressing his hand during kofi har’aq: you are well, now?

He’s never gotten the hang of pulling his field in, but he realizes he’s been resisting the urge to suppress it; he’s felt strange, prickling strange, with it spilling out into Ifran’s empty, in these brief moments they’re alone. But it spreads out around him easy-like, after all, lapping gently into the other man’s space.

“Nkemi took me to Serkaih early this morning,” he goes on after a moment, “when it wasn’t so hot. I saw the first light hitting the rock, lighting up all the colors.” He inclines his head, and his smile’s more genuine and more solemn at once. “The lanterns were still lit, when we started down; Nkemi was telling me about the ritual of…”

Nkese and Nkemi come back in from the hall. The warm smell of the stew and more has grown louder and louder; some smells he knows, like potatoes and carrots, onions fried in ghee, even if the blend of spices is unfamiliar.

With a last nod at Ifran, he starts to rise with his plate. He blinks in surprise when she reaches out; he smiles up at her and passes it to her, though he pauses before he speaks. “I should start with a little, ada’na,” he replies, then adds, honestly, “though it looks wonderful; I’m very hungry.”

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Early Evening, 30 Bethas, 2720
Nkese and Ifran's Home, the Outskirts of Dkanat

Nkemi has been to Anetol’s study, and seen the great bookshelves full and glistening with color, like stone cliffs in their own right. She remembers the book he read to her from, the Hoxian poetess who spoke of seeking and finding both.

“Ada’na Ezem,” Nkese had nodded, smiling. “My interests were always more in the oral poetry which lays deep in our history. But I remember Ada’na Ezem’s work very well, though I do not know whether I have met Professor Isúun.”

There are not many poetry books in the house, not anymore; there were not, Nkemi knows, very many either, when she was young. She has wondered, more than once, if there were many, once, in the small rooms in Dejai; she has wondered if they were gifts to Roa, whether in the desert or the city. She did not understand, as a girl; she has understood, since, and she has wondered. But this she would not have asked even Nkanzi, even when she was only just old enough to understand, and she does not ask now.

There is not even the slightest pinch on her mother’s face, Nkemi knows; she does not search for one now, for she knows what she will and will not see.

Something like surprise had flickered over her mother’s face at the mention of ada’na Tsadi. Even Nkemi, who does not know of poetry, knows something of the imbali.The conversation does not linger there, long; it pools briefly, eddies, and swirls on, until it is time to eat once more.

Whatever Anetol answered to her father, he and Ifran have drifted back into silence by the time Nkemi and Nkese return. Nkemi goes around to her seat once the bowl and platter are on the table, smiling up at Nkese.

Nkese begins with a large spoonful of the goat meat, and adds to it a helping of the vegetables; she sets a flatbread next to it, warm and black-spotted from its frying, still soft.

“Begin with this,” Nkese says, setting the plate before Anetol. “As you can see, it is best that you eat your fill.”

Nkese serves Ifran next, and then Nkemi, and last herself. Nkemi’s plate is piled highest, though there is not such a difference between the three portions. The fork, spoon and knife lay forgotten now; they all of them eat with their hands, comfortably, using the bread to mop up the tender goat meat and all its spices. The sauces, too, come around again, and Nkemi spoons more of both onto her plate.

The conversation meanders a little more; they are all of them eating, but they are not too busy to speak.

“At the beginning of rainy season, juela,” Nkemi smiles at her mother; she wipes her hand, and picks up her water glass, taking a sip from it. They do not yet speak of what will come afterwards; they all know, but there is little need to say it.

Nkese nods.

It is Ifran who speaks, quietly; his gaze lingers a moment on Anetol, and it is Nkemi and him both that he speaks to. “It is a gift,” Ifran offers, into the quiet lull. He says nothing more; he is not quite smiling, but he is not frowning either. Nkemi looks at him, and she smiles, too, because these words she feels deep inside.

Nkese serves more when the food runs low on each plate; she does not quite let anyone run out, not yet, and the room is all full with the scent of it, hazy in the candlelight, brown-red and yellow-orange. Nkemi feels she could eat endlessly; she feels she has been empty inside these last months, and that she could gorge herself, and it would not be enough.

“Nkemi has not written much of your family,” Nkese says to Anetol, smiling, as the conversation winds down once more. “Will you tell us something of them, and your life in Vienda?”

[Tom Cooke]

Nkese and Ifran's Home • On the Edge of Dkanat

Evening on the 28th of Bethas, 2720

T
hank you, ada’na,” he’s said, eying the lamb and the vegetables piled on his plate, then eying Nkemi’s when they’ve settled back. If he didn’t know her, he’d be doubtful she could manage it; because he does know her, he smiles, watching her set to work as he pulls off a piece of his own tender flatbread.

It’s soft and warm underneath his fingers, flaking where it’s spotted dark from the pan. At first, though conversation burbles on, he’s diligent; he glances up at Nkese, grinning, though he’s well engaged in scooping up goat and vegetables with the flatbread in his shaky hand. Before they left, he asked about oral poetry, and old memories of gkacha and a man’s lilting voice are gentle in his chest; they mingle with new memories of his arm in Nkemi’s at the fireside, Safala with his head in the sand.

They meander from old parable-poems, ire’giraqem, to other subjects, comfortable and easy. He’s no longer so straight as he was eating the fritters, stooped occasionally as if he’s squinting at some document or another through his glasses in Stainthorpe Hall. He feels like a guest, but not a stranger. He eats without thinking too hard on it, without worrying he’s making a spectacle of himself or otherwise; his hands seldom slip, but when they do, he does not pause over it. He eats like a hungry man, and can’t quite bring himself to be ashamed.

Ifran is mostly silent, for all he’s felt; it’s juela and daughter whose voices weave about each other, soft long Mugrobi vowels and lilting consonants. He speaks, off and on, asks questions, nods his agreement.

It’s easy to forget that Nkemi has ever been anywhere else, that she arrived just yesterday or will ever leave. He knows now without knowing she’s sitting cross-legged on the chair. He can’t tell if Nkemi’s accent lengthens here, or if it’s just this place drawing it out in his mind.

There is a pause; it’s no longer so easy to forget, of a sudden.

He inclines his head when Ifran speaks, meeting his eye. He smiles, though it’s not so easy, this time; it’s not just sadness he feels, but a familiar aching guilt. And gratitude, which doesn’t ease the ache.

In the corner of his eye, Nkemi is smiling, too, and he doesn’t look at her. They’re all quiet for a moment – a warm, comfortable moment, for all its weight.

And then they wind on, and there’s more goat on his plate, gleaming in the rich sauce, and lumps of potato and tangles of cabbage. His mouth is full of the heat, but there’s no prickling in his eyes; he’s only worried he won’t be able to finish. Their voices burble up again; he finds himself laughing softly, then listening quietly, then…

He blinks; he cannot hide his faint surprise, though he smiles back at Nkese a moment later.

“Of course,” he says.

Nkemi, he thinks to say, honors me with her – respect – I’m a private man, he thinks to say. Rubbish and spitch. My wife was out of town when Nkemi met me; as a matter of fact, my wife has been out of town for as long as Nkemi has known me, and someday I think she will leave town and never come back. That’s Anaxas, for you.

He pauses, flatbread in hand. “I’m sorry to say Nkemi hasn’t had occasion to meet much of my family,” he says, thinking of how she handled herself and her baton in Fly-Ash, of the festival, of the Rose, of where he sits now. “Though I’ve been honored to take tea and kofi with her at our house. I live Uptown, not so far from Ro Hill, where – parliament,” he barely pauses; he thinks of the forks and spoons laid out, and the tense, straight-backed silences, but continues, “is.”

He goes on a little, about the bustle of Vienda in the last year; he skims the skin of the water speaking of the turning of the cycle, and describes the willow tree in his garden.

“I miss my daughter,” he adds after a pause, glancing toward Ifran; he smiles at Nkese, and some of his hesitation melts away. “Very much.”

He eases back, taking a deep breath and wiping off his hands. He looks to the door, to the hallway half in shadow; he thinks of the fine rug, and of what Nkese has said. He thinks carefully. “You said you grew up in this house, too, ada’na?” he asks.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Evening, 30 Bethas, 2720
Nkese and Ifran's Home, the Outskirts of Dkanat

Nkese has watched him as he speaks, through a careful look which is not quite a frown. They know Ro Hill; Nkemi knows this because it is one of the places on the maps she has traced for one of her letters, slow and careful. She wished to show them the bend of the Arova, the shape of the city through it; she wished them to know by seeing that she was not so far from Hulali’s grace.

She did not trace every street in her map; she did not mark for them Willow Ave, no more than she did all the small twisting lanes of the Dives. But she drew some hatches, here and there, to show them the barracks, to show them the docks, to show them this kofi house or that restaurant, and she found them amidst the shapes as best as she could, and if they were not quite perfect, they did their best.

It is when he mentions his daughter that whatever it was on her mother’s brow fades away, and she smiles. Ifran is not quite smiling, but he is not frowning, either.

Nkese inclines her head. “It is hard to have our children far from us,” she says, softly, “and no matter what the distance, it tugs. But their hearts remain with us, as do ours with them.”

Nkemi smiles at her mother. She is slowing down in her eating, but there is food still on her plate, and she takes another small piece of her flatbread, and scoops up another bite.

“Yes,” Nkese’s smile softens again. “Nkemi never met my father, but she is very like him in many ways. By saying this I embarrass her, for he was a very good and honorable man, and well respected.” She sits back.

“He was born in Dkanat too,” Nkese explains. “He was the youngest of two brothers, and when he was born it was in a house in town. This house sat here on the hill, but it had lain empty many years, and all its histories had been forgotten. He played here as a boy; they believed it haunted, then, as all forgotten things may be haunted.”

“It is a long story,” Nkese says with a smile. “He traveled far as a young man, and when he returned it was with the deed to this house. Though he had been apart from Dkanat for many years he was still one of its sons, and they greeted him gladly. He was for many years what we call the dzúxúwuq, which is the one who decides for the village.”

“My sister and I were born to him and our mother when his hair was gray,” Nkese goes on. “Naulas took her when my sister was small, and though he could have done otherwise, he raised us here. It was a joy to raise my daughter in this same house; I felt often as if his memory was here, guiding me.”

Nkese does not often speak of him. Nkemi sees why; her eyes are glistening, faintly, in the candlelight. Her voice has held strong as she speaks, but she falls silent, and Nkemi hears much in that too.

Nkemi has never needed to ask why her mother does not speak of him; Nkanzi has never needed to tell her. Nkemi knows whose hands it was that carved the tsan’ehew at the edge of Serkaih; she knows the old small scar at the base of her mother’s thumb, where a chisel once slipped.

There is, for a moment, silence.

“He knew much of history, of Dkanat and Serkaih both,” Ifran says quietly, into the midst of the table. He looks at Anetol; he smiles. “He was a man who remembered history, as well as making it. I was grateful to have some years with him as well.”

Nkese beams at him; her smile is bastly bright, and her field swells with it. She pats at her damp eyes. Nkemi sets her hand on her mother’s.

”He wrote several books,” Nkese adds, her voice clear once more. “I do not think they can be found with any bookseller in Thul Ka, but - if you are interested, Ada’xa?” She smiles at Anetol. “One is held also in the archives at Serkaih.” Her voice warms, once more, with pride.

[Tom Cooke]

Nkese and Ifran's Home • On the Edge of Dkanat

Evening on the 28th of Bethas, 2720

S
omeone had told him that once; he can’t remember who, or in what words. Dee, maybe, before the end, when her eyes had lost their sight and her hands had shaken on his. He thinks keeping a heart close is a qalqa of its own, and he hasn’t done well at that work.

That Nkese says it, the familiar line between her brows smoothing away, makes him swallow a lump. All he can do is nod. There’s a smile on her face, and he’s not sure if it’s better than the look that was there before. He hasn’t lied, though, not even once; and he doesn’t think he’s made these people lie, either, not even Ifran, who has said the incumbent’s name in careful and perfect Estuan.

Nkemi’s smiling at her mother, and Nkese goes on, then.

For a while, he listens, absorbed. Slowly, he sets back about his food. He listens to his hunger, or what’s left of it; he tears off more flatbread, cooling but still soft, and eats more stewed goat and vegetables.

He doesn’t look round at the house as she speaks, or at Nkemi, though he’s thinking of both. He thinks he expected her to say her jara built it; now, he thinks of it, standing at the end of the winding path in the shadow of the hill at Dkanat’s edge, with a history nobody knows. He thinks of the way the walls and the creaky second step and the stairwell leading up felt, well-tended but full of – something, in the way that a body is full of a soul. He thinks of Nkese, who loves the oral tradition, saying, all its histories had been forgotten.

He thinks, too, of a man who has echoes of Nkemi about his face, though he’s no good at picturing it. And of a dzúxúwuq, and carved chairs and silverware in callused hands. Whatever the house’s history, this chapter of it has made its own; and he watches Nkese’s eyes glittering, thinking of the wearing of rock and grief over time. He doesn’t look at Nkemi now, either.

He does look at Ifran, and he can’t help the keenness in his eye. It’s there, for a moment, but his smile softens. He looks back at Nkese.

It’s the bastly he can feel glowing through her field, not a thread or a pulse but permeating. She smiles through it, too, and the candlelight sparks in the glittering of her eyes, making her tears look like gold. Nkemi’s small hand is clasping hers. As she dabs at her eyes, he loses track of the questions he might’ve asked – about the history of this place, the history of Serkaih – it doesn’t seem right to ask anything, in the wake of that offer.

He inclines his head. “It would be an honor to read his truth, ada’na,” he says, “ada’xa,” nodding at Ifran, and then finally smiling at Nkemi. His smile doesn’t linger long; he doesn’t want to embarrass her.

It’s been a little while since he’s eaten. He’s felt the weight of Nkese’s words, and has kept his attention on her and Ifran, rapt. With the last of his flatbread, he takes another bite of cabbage and carrot and potato; he’s cleaned up all the goat, except for some onions and sauce on his plate, and he scoops these up too.

“Nkemi’s told me a little of this place’s history,” he says when he’s finished, easing away, “and of how far back it goes. I’m grateful for the opportunity to know more; I plan to spend several days in the archives. I’ll look for his work, there, too.”

He’s the sort of full, he thinks, that he won’t really know until he begins the walk back to Emeka’s house. Now, it takes on a bastliness of its own, and it’s easy to settle into it.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Evening, 30 Bethas, 2720
Nkese and Ifran's Home, the Outskirts of Dkanat

In time, it is Ifran who sweeps the dishes away; his hands shake, too, just a little. Nkemi’s eyes linger on them, a moment, and then she finds it in herself to look away, and not to her mother, but truly away. The platter of lamb is almost entirely gone, the vegetables too, and there are only a few neat circles of flatbread left. Ifran carries them out first, and Nkemi rises, and follows behind him with the plates.

She did not expect anything more – she did not know of anything more. But Ifran takes the small covered pots from the corner of the kitchen, and offers Nkemi two to carry.

“Your mother taught me how to make it,” he says, quietly, standing in the doorway. He smiles, looking down at the pots in his hands, and then back at Nkemi.

Nkemi smiles back at him; she looks down once more. She would not have known; the top of the puddings are golden brown, rich and gleaming. She carries out the proper spoons for oqir’on, tucked into her hand against the clay pots, and sets them down next to the bowls on the table. These are not small, delicately wrought spoons, but sturdy things with a curvy to them.

“It is oqir’on,” it is Ifran who explains, as he sits, looking to Anetol. “A dessert which we like here – made of milk and rice, with some sweet.”

“Like a pudding,” Nkemi says, faintly doubtful; she cannot think of a better word, but it bears little resemblance to the strange, soggy-sweet puddings of Anaxas. She dips her spoon in, smiling; it is warm, still, from having been tucked close to the stove, and sweet and thick. The rice has all but dissolved in the milk, starch and date sugar, and there is a sprinkling of rich-sweet cinnamon on top.

Nkemi eats what she can; she is full, full of conversation and spices and love and warmth, but she finds it in herself for a few bites, and then a few more. She finds Ifran watching her, his eyes dipping to the oqir’on in her bowl, and she takes another bite, then. Her father smiles, soft warm around the edges of his mouth.

Before they leave, Nkese goes down the hall; she returns with an old book, leather bound, tenderly wiped free of dust; the pages have softened, faintly, but it is well-kept. She sets it by Anetol’s plate, and it is there when he comes back from washing his hands at the pitcher and basin at the corner of the room.

“This one is not in the archives,” Nkese says, solemn and smiling all at once. “It is a history of Dkanat, and not Serkaih; it is a history of the stories people tell.”

There is no rush, but it is not so long before Nkemi finds herself guiding Anetol through the door, her arm tucked lightly through his. She will not be gone long, but Nkese’s kiss lingers on her cheek. She and Ifran have both bowed to Anetol, have wished him a good night, and the quiet echoes of cleaning up linger behind them.

There is little scattered moonlight, but the stars glow brilliant. Swaths of them paint bright across the clear sky, stretching across the entirety of the horizon, interrupted only by the occasional rolling hills and distant shapes of scraggly trees. The candles of the house are not enough to match them, not even to begin a challenge, and there is only the faintest light from Dkanat below, scarcely enough to make out its shape against the dark. The path down the hill is only just visible, in the glow of the stars, but Nkemi knows it without needing to see. They walk slowly; there is no rush.

“Thank you,” Nkemi says, quietly. Her arm is through Anetol’s still; she looks up at him, unhesitating, unafraid and unembarrassed, and she smiles. Her field presses softly against his, and bastly warmth moves through the caprise.

[Tom Cooke]

Nkese and Ifran's Home • On the Edge of Dkanat

Evening on the 28th of Bethas, 2720

H
e didn’t know how full he was, then. He’s still glowing with the memory of oq’iron – and with how ada’xa Ifran spoke, how could he forego it? – of lightly-browned rice pudding, so different from a Clock’s Eve pudding, bag-boiled and rum-soaked and sweet with treacle.

He’s still running his hands over the leather bindings, the book tucked close to his chest, full up with the memory of the soft, crackling pages and Nkese’s serious smile.

He’s still full up as they pass over that Hoxian carpet again; it’s soft underneath his sandals, and Nkemi’s field is soft against his. The candles are low, and this hall’s not so warm as the dining room. He doesn’t look back at the hall, with its doors and its stairs leading up, or at the kitchen still spilling out light and the sound of clinking dishware and slushing water.

They go out.

The last smells of goat stew and cinnamon and goatsmilk are nothing to the first lungful of desert night air. The stars spread out overhead like he said they would, once; what he didn’t say was how small it makes a soul feel, or the weight of the wide desert and canyon and scrubland stretching out in every direction. Or the sound – not silence – of the wind whisking its wings over the vastness, the sky pressing down. The brightness overhead makes Vita dark, and his eyes can’t see the path; Dkanat is a cluster of warm lights, its rooftops blending into one another.

The tide comes out; the tide goes in. There are dark dots scattered on the shore of his thoughts, things he hasn’t expected the dinner to leave. He shivers, even with Nkemi’s small arm looped warm through his. They walk slow, so it’s easy to make sure his footing is good. His stomach aches to be so full, and he doesn’t want to move fast.

They’re not to the first houses when Nkemi raises her voice. The quiet’s loud, until she speaks; then her soft voice seems like the loudest thing for miles.

Nkemi is looking up at him. When he looks over, he sees the moon– and starlight blue on her skin; the shadows are deep, but her eyes are clear to him, the whites ghostly, the darks deep.

“I’m honored to know ada’na Nkese and ada’xa Ifran.” His field laps hers softly, second-nature; bastly gold echoes through it and comes back to her.

He smiles, swallowing a lump he didn’t know had built in his throat. Belike clairvoyant mona mingle in the air round them, threaded through with static. He’s still holding the book against his chest. He tucks it into the crook of his arm between them, then sets his hand on her forearm.

She didn’t tell him. No, he thinks, she told him, if not in so many words. He can’t remember all of what she said, but he remembers enough to know. Thirty years ago, Ifran pez Tejulo must’ve been a young man, though that’s hard enough by itself to imagine. He himself is thirty; Nkemi is younger than him, by his reckoning by more than a couple of years. If she ever knew it at all, she must’ve been too young to remember it.

Thirty years is a long time. It didn’t slip away slowly, a spell here, a spell there; he abstained. But he must’ve watched them go, at first, little by little, until quiet became silent.

He thinks of the care she took when they first cast together. He squeezes her arm gently, taking a deep breath and looking down the path ahead. “Thank you,” he says carefully, looking back down at her, “for trusting me.” He studies her face; his brow furrows.