[Closed, Mature] A Soul That’s Born in Cold and Rain

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 34 Bethas, 2720
The Heart of Dkanat

Anetol,” Nkemi says, softly. He is standing, still, where she has left him, in the midst of Emeka’s parlor. She takes his hands in hers, and she guides him down into a seat, slowly and evenly.

It has been like this for some time; Nkemi does not know the hour. She has no sense of it; the sun is well over the horizon now, bright in the sky, which is clear and gleaming blue. It was cold in the valley, even by the time they left.

He is cold still.

He was not unconscious long, but it is as if his eyes have not truly opened. His face is dull, ashen; his skin is more gray than pale, his freckles like small wounds against it. His gray eyes are glassy, like a mirror.

“It was a great shock,” Nkemi says, again, to Jinasa, through the pinch of fear inside her. “He was trapped in a sandstorm with this same man; he spoke well of him.”

She does not speak of the sight of it, though she knows it will be across the village soon if it is not already. There is speaking that will - that must - be done, and Nkemi wishes for it to honor him, such as may be, and not defile in the way which gossip can. She has of yet said nothing; there is nothing which has yet needed to be said.

She cannot herself stop thinking of it, all the same. She knows such things too well; by habit, by training, she fixes the details of it in her mind. She could draw a map of it, though such knowledge is useless here. She knows the placement of all things, what was missing and found; she knows the shape of what was beneath him. It is strange and familiar, strange in the way all such deaths are their own, and familiar in the way which they are all the same.

Emeka has gone himself; he is the dzúxúwuq, though he has told her more than once that the title is not as it was in her grandfather’s day. Nkemi knows this is true and yet she knew also that he would have gone. They passed him on the way, on the cliffside, when it seemed that it was only her arm through Anetol’s which held him upright.

There was ised’usa in every step of the journey back, Nkemi knows, and yet she cannot hold the gratitude.

From the kitchen, she hears the grinding of kofi beans. Anetol is sitting straight backed before her, looking ahead, his jaw square and his feet slightly apart. Nkemi watches him, and she goes back to the kitchen, to the warmth.

“Nkemi!” Nkese comes through the door a whirl of energy.

“Juela,” Nkemi begins; Nkese folds her into her arms before she can go on. Nkemi closes her eyes and breathes in deep the scent of goat hair and eggs, and holds her mother close.

“I heard at Lefo’s,” Nkese’s arms are holding her tightly still. “May the Circle offer Hulali’s mercy for that poor boy; may Roa lead him swiftly to a better place.”

“Yes,” Nkemi breathes in deeply. She smells the kofi now; Jinasa is arranging cups on a tray, her face tight and pinched.

“Domea domea,” Nkemi takes the tray from her.

“I’ll make some food also,” Jinasa says, glancing at the door.

Nkemi inclines her head. Nkese follows her back into the other room; Nkemi hears her mother breathe in sharply at the sight of Anetol, her voice dying in her throat. She knows what Nkese feels, for she feels it also.

“Anetol,” Nkemi says, softly. She takes his hands, kneeling beside him; she rubs them in hers, her field reaching through his, though he has not returned her caprise in all the time since. “Drink this,” she tells him, and curls his fingers carefully around the warmth of the cup, holding them in place.

[Tom Cooke]

Emeka's Home • Dkanat

Morning on the 34th of Bethas, 2720

H
e can hear the dry husk of kofi beans in the pan from the kitchen, and the smell drifts out into the parlor. It’s the first thing he’s smelled since. Breathing it in, he half-expects it to be mixed with something sticky sweet and pungent; but there’s only the smell of the kofi, and varnished calypt, and clay. And the clinging spice scent of dozens of breakfasts and dinners, warm with the weight of memory.

When they reached the first houses at the outer edge of Dkanat, the wind plucked the smell of eggs out through the window. He remembers it hitting him like a man’s fist in the stomach, and how he’d swallowed a gag.

It’s easier, now. He can’t smell it, the sap. He feels like something of the scene’s still clinging to his skin, to the folds of his scarf and the hems of his trousers, but he’s no stranger to blood. The words and the lines have crawled inside him; when he shuts his eyes, he can see the circles painted vivid against the backs of his eyelids, catching fire in the lanternlight. If he shuts his eyes and looks at them too long, he’ll see what’s in the middle.

So he doesn’t. He stood, for a while; if his hip ached, it didn’t trouble him, all the way back. He doesn’t resist when he’s guided to a seat, though he can’t bear to look and see who’s speaking his name so soft.

Now, sitting – though he is drifting outside himself, as if the spell circles have pulled him, too, away – he looks at the wall opposite, across the small table and the other chairs. His lower back pinches – from the long walk, he thinks, though he can’t very well remember having walked it. He sits straight, his shoulders square, his jaw square.

There are voices from the kitchen. One of them’s Jinasa, he thinks; he knows she was here when they came in, though he doesn’t remember how he knows. He doesn’t remember if Jiowa is here, or if she’s gone – with Emeka, maybe. They passed Emeka on the way back, he knows, too; he was going in the opposite direction, back to the canyon. He didn’t understand then, and he doesn’t understand now.

For a little while, he felt the prefect’s arm through his like a death sentence. We know, he expected her to say. We all know, now.

I didn’t do it, he wanted to say.

We know that.

He didn’t deserve that, he wanted to plead. Anfe doesn’t deserve that. Anfe doesn’t even know what he is.

We spoke of mercy, he can still hear her saying; it swims through his head.

A pair of slim dark arms sets a tray on the table in front of him. He follows them very slowly up to a familiar face, though he still can’t bring himself to see it. It’s only at the touch of her hand that he shudders alive; it’s warm against his, warm and terrible against his skin. She rubs life into it as if it had life to begin with.

Then, she curls his fingers round a warm clay cup. He blinks; his eyes come into focus. When he looks up, there’s another woman in the room – like an older Nkemi, with stranger eyes – Nkese, he thinks, and the knowing settles through him, a different and more solid kind of knowing. She’s standing very still, wrapped in deep crimson and turquoise, with a soft blue headwrap. He meets her eyes; they’re creased at the edges, her brow drawn, a frown soft on her face. Her chest rises and falls visibly.

Nkemi is still crouched beside him; his hand is still on the cup. She’s still wearing the gold headwrap. When he opens his mouth to say something, his throat is too dry, and his chapped lips ache. He feels like he’s been hit by a cable-car, he realizes for the first time. His ears are ringing.

Slowly, careful with his shaky hands – he remembers, if nothing else, composure – he lifts the cup to his lips. The kofi is hot, almost too hot. Somebody’s already stirred menda into it; he knows this blend of spices as Emeka’s.

Emeka’s. The guest house. Emeka, who went to see –

He lowers the cup. “Yes,” he says dumbly. “Ah – thank you,” he only just remembers.

He blinks; he swallows tightly.

“Nkemi,” he says slowly. “Ada’na Nkese.” Something stirs through his field; he reaches out, sluggish, to meet the clairvoyant and static mona mingling with his. “Where is ada’xa Emeka?” he asks, blinking at Nkemi. “Do we know anything of… of what…”

Happened. His head aches; if he shuts his eyes, he’ll see it again. He glances down, his lips twisting.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 34 Bethas, 2720
The Heart of Dkanat

Anetol’s hands stay where she has put them on the cup, when Nkemi lets go of his hands. Hers hover for a moment, because she is not sure. He blinks. He is looking at her, but his eyes do not meet hers; they settle somewhere on her nose, drift up to the gold of her headwrap. There is a pause, after she speaks, when he does not move.

Slowly, his hands lift – both of them, together, trembling – and the kofi cup meets his lips. Nkemi does not know what she expects; he lowers the cup, and swallows.

Yes, he says, and then, thank you. Nkemi smiles at him, her eyes soft and pinched at the corners. She hears Nkese draw in a deep breath through her nose behind her; her mother’s field is intertwined deeply with her own, and a pulse of soft concern washes through it. He has spoken so throughout, his deep, bell-like voice hollow.

Nkemi, he says.

Nkemi feels the shift in his caprise, slow; she reaches back, cautious not to overwhelm him. The three of them are mingled, then, and the belike clairvoyant mona in Nkemi’s field meet him, and ease the rest of it, all smoothed together.

Nkemi shudders a little when he goes on; she exhales a tightly held breath. She comes up out of her crouch, aching all through her back, her hips and legs. She sits on the edge of Anetol’s chair, and smiles down at him, though it is a somber smile, and it does not touch her eyes.

Nkese sits too on the small couch nearby; her hands are tight in her lap. She takes a cup of kofi herself, and passes it up to Nkemi after a moment. Nkemi takes it from her and cradles it herself, feeling the warmth against her palms. She can feel the pinch of tiredness beneath her eyes, on the lines of her face, in the aches of her body. She lets herself feel it, all of it, and she settles into it. There is pushing away and pushing back, ways to resist when the body or heart feels more than one can bear; such tools have their place, but they can never be more than fixed. It is better to move through, and to move forward.

“Ada’xa Emeka has gone to Serkaih,” Nkemi says. She takes a sip of her kofi; she did not notice Nkese stir the sugar into it, but she tastes it, sweet and bitter at once. “He is the dzúxúwuq of Dkanat; he must…” Nkemi’s voice trails off, and then goes on, “see."

“Dkanat and Serkaih breathe together in such things,” Nkese says, quietly, looking at the two of them. “As will Ada’xa Emeka and Ada’na Ale’ala.”

“We know very little,” Nkemi says, looking at Anetol. Her brow furrows. It is not her place to ask such things, and yet – it will not be long before the door opens and Emeka returns, all bright white wiry hair and sharp energy. She felt his anger when they passed, flaring in his field.

“Did Kafo ever mention Dzevizawa?” Nkemi asks, gently. She does not look away, and tries to set the cup aside; she feels Nkese’s hands meet hers, and take it, and is grateful without acknowledgement. Her hands settle around Anetol’s once more, and she looks at him, soft and sad, her brow furrowed. “I do not know if you spoke much, with him. The slightest thing he said may help us to understand.”

There is no blame in her voice, only sorrow. Even if he angered them, it does not excuse – cannot begin to explain – but if Kafo feared the eight legged weavers, Nkemi thinks, they will know something of being on the right track. Her breathing is shaky, in and out through her nose. She settles it, slowly, and calms herself.

One strange part, which she can acknowledge amidst the grief and horror, was how familiar the scene was; she has never seen such things before, but she has heard them whispered about through the years – half-twisted, made strange by the passage of time and memory, and yet familiar. She knows; they all know; and yet she felt Nkese flinch behind her when she spoke the name Dzevizawa.

Nkemi takes a deep breath, in and out, steadily. Her hands are clasped softly around Anetol’s. She does not try to guide his breathing, not here and now, though she will be grateful if he joins her; she has work enough to do mastering herself.

[Tom Cooke]

Emeka's Home • Dkanat

Morning on the 34th of Bethas, 2720

D
zúxúwuq,” he repeats, moving carefully over the x, just barely breathing the q. There is no ritual here; it’s not the place or the time for it, the back-and-forth. Nkemi’s slight weight is settled on the edge of her chair, and he looks up at her, at her lips that smile and the pinched lines around her eyes.

She takes a sip of her kofi; he feels a pang. He wants to ask – is she all right, is – he doesn’t know. He can’t think. “Like your grandfather,” he murmurs, then looks down at the kofi in his lap and his hands around it.

Serkaih, she said; he suppressed a shudder, and he pushed down the tingling all up through him, the ache in the bones of his jaw, when she said see. Some of it leaks out into his field, stirring pale watery green before it evens out, because he remembers the black canyon walls and the first blush of dawn creeping out above them. He remembers all of it like it’s stamped into his head.

Ale’ala. He glances at Nkese, his lips twitching. He remembers just yesterday, copying monite carefully in a carrel; smiling up at the brush of the tsorerem’s field, the hushed sweep of a broom.

When Nkemi speaks again, he looks at her. Before, her face was like a script he couldn’t read; now, it’s become legible – the familiar made unfamiliar made familiar – just enough he can make out the lines on her forehead, the solemn set of her lips. Her eyes are watchful; he knows her watchful eyes.

The slightest thing he said.

His mouth comes open a little when she mentions the tribe. He glances sharply from Nkese to Nkemi, blinking. His own brow furrows. He blinks again, and again; he opens his mouth more, but the words stick in his throat. He looks back down at his kofi, running his thumb around the lip of the clay cup. It’s traced with patterns, tiny intricate lines underneath the fingertips. The glaze is smooth and glossy.

Nkemi’s hands settle around his on the cup. He’s not sure when she set her cup aside; when he looks up, Nkese is setting it down on the tray, her face troubled.

The smell of warm ghee leaks out of the kitchen, and then the smell of eggs. There’s a sound like the creak of a door, deafening now in the quiet parlor; a voice – Jiowa’s, he thinks; it’s sharp enough – rings out in Mugrobi, long low lilting vowels.

“Dzevizawa?” he asks finally, squinting up at her again. He sees something like a shiver – like a current, like static – run through Nkese; the older arata’s lips are pressed together. “No, I… He never mentioned them. We only spoke – twice, I think. And not much.”

It’s not hard to say; it’s true enough. There’s more noise from the kitchen. He turns it over in his mind, his brow furrowing. Nkemi’s breath shudders in her chest, and he feels her even it out; he feels it in the mingling of their fields, now, though the sensation is raw and new.

He feels his own breath suddenly, and he tries to even it out. “He, uh – last night,” he says, evening it out a little more. “The one who – followed you. I thought it was him; I suspected…”

His breath hitches; a lance of something like fear and something like guilt goes through him.

“He liked the lights in Serkaih at night,” he goes on, very quietly. “And the stars.” He shuts his eyes against the heat and pressure behind them.

Anfe, he thinks again. Godsdamn. Does he know yet? Anfe, he thinks to say, but – he thinks of the two of them coming together at the base of the dune, and the redness of the man’s eyes behind his goggles. His skin crawls.

Nkemi’s breath is evening out, but it’s not so even as it usually is; there’s something labored about it, as if the evening’s a struggle.

The guilt sits in his belly like a stone. He manages to slip one hand out from under hers, his palm very warm from the cup; he presses hers with it, and looks back up at her. “I don’t understand,” he says, because he doesn’t. “What does – Dzevizawa have to do with anything?” The door opens again in the kitchen; he glances back and forth between Nkemi and her mother.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 34 Bethas, 2720
The Heart of Dkanat

Anetol does not speak more, for a time; your grandfather, he says, and then silence once more. It is moving silence, though; his face furrows into a frown, his mouth opens and closes. He is pale beneath his freckles; some of the grayish cast of him is gone. When he looks down, it is at the cup in his hand, and his thumb traces the lines of the pattern carved carefully into the side of the glasses.

He repeats the name, and then again, and it falls heavily on them all; Nkese’s hands tighten on Nkemi’s cup.

“Efa’on,” Nkese says, softly, “it is best not to speak of them.”

Nkemi’s face softens at the look on Anetol’s when he speaks of the lights and the stars. She looks back at her mother; she does not think she quite smiles. “Some things must be spoken of, juela,” she reaches out and takes Nkese’s hands in one of hers, the other still pressed to Anetol’s. She takes a deep breath; she holds on.

“You knew him?” Nkese asks, looking between them. “Lefo says he heard he was from Ada’na Inis’s caravan.”

Nkemi nods, breathing deeply. “I thought he had left with them,” she says, quietly, looking at Anetol. Why did you think you saw him? She wants to ask. Did you know he was here…? She thinks of Kafo; she thinks of a slender arm dangling from a tree branch, of a long, slim figure outside of the back of the green-covered wagon, gazing in as Anetol slept inside. She heard how they spoke of him, after the accident, for all that he had likely saved Anetol and Ipiwo both.

The smells coming from the kitchen turn Nkemi’s stomach, now; she closes her eyes. She takes the kofi from Nkese once more, and opens them, both of her hands around the kofi again. She breathes in the scent of it and the menda and the sugar, and takes another sip, and her stomach settles, once more. Such scents are not unfamiliar to her, but she hopes she never comes to find them tolerable.

“Such an incident happened thirty years ago,” Nkese says, her face tight. “Ifran and I had only just come to Dkanat,” her hand cups Nkemi’s cheek, and she strokes it with her thumb. “It was a long time ago, and yet all of us know it. They did not deny it then.”

“It is why this place is forbidden to them,” Nkemi says, quietly, looking at Anetol once more. She smiles at Nkese, who reaches to take her own cup now, and smiles back, her eyes heavy with sadness.

“It was the only decision he could think to make,” Nkese says, her voice heavy with remembered weight.

Nkemi breathes in, deeply; she slides down to the couch, and sits next to Nkese. Nkese wraps her arm around Nkemi’s shoulders, and kisses her daughter’s forehead, lightly.

They can do nothing but sit with it, a little while. There is nothing which words can do, nor silence either; there is only the truth of it, and the horror, and they can neither of them be hidden from. Nkemi drinks the last of her kofi.

Jinasa comes out in time with a tray, with black-spotted flatbread and eggs cooked with vegetables and spices, gleaming in a small copper pan. She sets them down on the table, with plates and spoons; she goes back to the kitchen, doors opening and closing, the sounds of bright conversation. Jiowa comes out, and goes back in.

Nkese makes each of them a plate; she settles Anetol’s in his lap, and then Nkemi’s in hers. Nkemi eats, mechanically; she has a few bites, and stops, and sits a little while, and Nkese’s hand curls over hers and holds. In time, she eats a little more, and if she does not finish what her mother has set out for her, she eats enough that some of the drained emptiness inside her fills.

Nkemi breathes in, deep, and out again.

Jinasa comes with more kofi; she pours herself a cup as well, and sits beside them, her face creased and her apron stained.

The door bangs open when Emeka returns. His face is taut and settled into a harsh scowl; Ale’ala’s hand rests on his arm, and the tsorerem’s face is heavy as well, her white garments draped around her. They both smell faintly of donkeys, of sun, of fear. Nkemi feels it too; she knows the smell of it greets them here.

Emeka scowls. “Horrible,” he snaps. His steps are smooth and gentle. Nkemi rises and comes to him, and they each take one of Ale’ala’s arms, and settle her into another of the chairs. She eases back slowly against the hard back with the cushions tucked behind her.

Jinasa does not need to ask; she is pouring kofi already. Jiowa stands at the bottom of the stairs; Dhafed is removing his sandals at the doorway, and closing it behind himself.

“I hear you two were with Badhe when,” Emeka’s face twitches, and he clears his throat; Nkemi feels Nkese sitting very straight beside her, and knows her mother’s gaze is fixed firmly on the old man. “he found him.” Emeka goes on.

Nkemi inclines her head. There is still warm kofi in her hands; she has lost track of its holding. She breathes in deeply. “We had just finished a meditation in one of the caverns,” Nkemi says, “when we heard Badhe along the path.” She shakes her head, slightly; her jaw sets.

“Ever seen anything like this in Thul Ka?” Emeka asks; he barks a harsh laugh.

Nkemi draws herself up prefect straight, and sets the kofi down. She looks at Emeka, too, in the silence, her field pressing back against the sharp caprise of his until he clears his throat, gruffly, and inclines his head lightly. “Not like this,” Nkemi says, evenly.

[Tom Cooke]

Emeka's Home • Dkanat

Morning on the 34th of Bethas, 2720

N
kemi’s eyes were sharp on him, briefly.

The smell’s stronger, now. It’s Jinasa that brings it in; he can focus on her, this time – he can’t remember if he’s seen her earlier that morning – with a copper pan that catches the light coming through the windows, steam still whirling up through the warming air. Raw-eyed, he follows it. He follows Nkese’s motions, laying out the flatbread on the plate, scooping out the eggs and vegetables.

Nkemi’s mother’s hands are steady; there’s no shake to them. He thinks to reach out and take the plate from her, but he can’t will his limbs. The plate is warm in his lap, and he can’t bring himself to look down at it. He watches Nkemi for a moment, scooping up a bite of egg and vegetable, chewing rhythmically and swallowing, the muscles flickering at her throat. She leaves off after a few bites; beside her on the couch, Nkese touches her hand.

He glances down at his eggs. His eyes are tired, and he shuts them; shapes splatter against the dark. He opens them and tears off a little flatbread, breathing in the smell.

I thought so, too, he said, under Nkemi’s watchful eye. I met him outside the other night; we – talked.

He’s managed a few bites of flatbread when the door bangs. He blinks and his eyes widen at the sight of Ale’ala moving slowly into the sitting room on Emeka’s arm, swathed in white. There are six – seven, now, with Jiowa – fields mingling. The air is full of them and the smell of sweat and sun-warmed cloth.

Nkemi and Emeka together are helping Ale’ala into a seat. Thirty years, he thinks, watching the tsorerem and the dzúxúwuq. When they rise again, Nkemi is watching Emeka; everyone is watching Emeka.

He watches Nkemi, her chest rising and falling, her small frame pulled as straight as it ever has been. At the question, he sits a little straighter himself; he takes a deep breath despite the churning in his head, the crawling all over his skin, and looks at the old arata evenly. His lip twitches.

He feels the press of Nkemi’s field against Emeka’s, as they all do. Something like a smile’s on Nkese’s face, proud, almost; but there’s pain in the lines around it, and it doesn’t reach her eyes.

“Ada’xa Badhe,” he says after a moment, quiet. The plate is cooling in his hands; he’s eaten some of the flatbread and some of the eggs, at least. He leans to set it down on the table with Nkemi’s, and smiles weakly at Jinasa. “Is he – all right?”

Ale’ala smooths the white cloth in her lap with knotted hands; she breathes in deeply. “He is with Tsarero,” she says. “The burden lays heavy on the tsochyusem during this time.”

Emeka pulls at the wisp of his beard, then takes a seat by Jinasa. His field pulses gently against hers; Jiowa moves into the room a little more, resting her hands on the back of a chair, and her caprise reaches out to her father.

Despite the slope of his shoulders, he sits with his chin up. “Tsarero’s feeling the weight of it,” he grunts. “Badhe was right.”

Ale’ala shakes her head. “He did not know.”

Emeka nods slowly. “Who would’ve? Thirty years.” One of his bony hands knots over his knee; he looks down at it, shakes his head. “Ah, Dhe’fere.”

They did not deny it then, he remembers. He glances down at the carpet, tracing the pattern; he swallows tightly, then leans to take his kofi back off the table, cradling it in his hands. Dhe’fere pez Ir’afúr, he thinks – his mind skims over pages of Dkanat folklore, warm with lamplight and sun-weariness – dzúxúwuq, he thinks. Thirty years.

“... Ada’xa Vauquelin?” Emeka is pulling at his beard.

He glances up sharply. “Yes, I –” He glances toward Nkemi, then back at Emeka. “He was – a quiet man. And gentle.” He swallows tightly. “I didn’t know him very well; I don’t know why he didn’t move on with Tseq’ule. I met him outside one night,” he repeats slowly, “here. I believe he was visiting Serkaih for personal reasons. He was –”

There is a pause.

“He was gentle,” he says again, and finds it hard to speak.

Nkese murmurs something in Mugrobi, her hands folded in her lap.

“I remember the last one. It makes no sense.” Emeka sets his cup down, his face set.

“Aya’wo,” Ale’ala says, pushing herself up slowly on the cushions. “I cannot understand it. Ife is with Safeera in the archives, and I shall pray they find an osi. Kafo pez Alef,” her brow knits over the last, but she continues, “was a stranger to Dkanat and Serkaih; he was dura, besides.”

“I knew ada’na Aya’wo.” Nkese’s voice is soft. “She was born in Dkanat. We were of an age, as girls.” Her eyes are dry, but the line of her mouth is unsteady.

Emeka lets out a sharp breath. “Yar’aka.”

“Jara,” says Jiowa firmly.

“Aya’wo was a fine tsorerem.” Ale’ala is shaking her head.

“She stayed with Jiwaya and I, during her illness.” He’s silent a moment more, dark eyes fixed on the carpet.

The back of his neck is crawling. “You knew it was Dzevizawa, then?” he asks into the quiet.

Emeka grunts. “We suspected,” he bites off. “They confirmed our suspicions. Dhe’fere wanted to understand them, Naulas guide him. He tried. Broke bread with their efotú, even after.” He shakes his head.

“I remember this, too,” Nkese says, quietly.

He glances at Nkemi, finally, prefect-straight; there’s something of the prefect about her face, too, he thinks. He can’t pick her field out of the rest, mingling heady in the sitting room, but he thinks he knows the look in her eye.
She is looking at her mother.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 34 Bethas, 2720
The Heart of Dkanat

Nkemi feels nothing like victory at the solemn look on Emeka’s face. He tugs at his beard, and turns away, and Nkemi holds herself upright. Nkese has shifted closer to her, as the others have sat; her mother’s hand rests on hers, for just a moment, and they come apart once more. Nkemi breathes, easily; this is a time for calmness.

She is tired.

There was a rush of adrenaline at the sight of him; it swept through and lit a fire in her veins. There was then the need of getting Anetol back, and within it there was no space for her own aches. There was the kofi, then, and the rich bright scent of it mingled with spices, but Nkemi feels the tiredness deep in her bones, laying along them, and in her skin beneath her eyes and the edges of her mind.

“I knew him from Tseq’ule, yes,” Nkemi says, when Emeka turns to her once more. “Kafo pez Alef,” she shakes her head. “Anetol spoke with him a few times; I never did.” She does not say cracked in the water barrel, nor the term the Anaxi like for it – moony – nor anything else of the sort. These words she remembers, and remembers well. For all she knows any detail may matter, this one she reserves, a little longer.

“What did you think of him, Ada’xa Vauquelin?” Emeka tugs at his beard, frowning into it.

Gentle, Anetol says in the end, and the word is swallowed up at the end by the look on his face, the soft press of his lips.

“May the next life find him well,” Nkese prays, softly, her head bowed and her hands in her lap.

Aya’wo, Nkese says. Nkemi listens, and watches, and for a time she does not speak. She looks at her mother, and then to Emeka, and Ale’ala. When Anetol asks his question, Nkemi looks to him also.

“Juela,” Nkemi says, quietly, into the silence. “Did juelajara keep his journals then, as well?”

Emeka turns to her; his thick white eyebrows shoot up. There is something on Ale’ala’s face, soft, sorrowful, and not quite surprised.

Nkese’s lips press together, very firmly. “Of course,” she says. “He knew well the value of records.”

Nkemi knows the trunk in the attic of the house, tightly sealed; Nkese dusts it every year, and never opens it. They are soft journals, stacks of pages bound together by her grandfather’s own hand, carefully kept.

“If you do not object,” Nkemi says, and her eyes go to Emeka, to Ale’ala, to Nkese, “I will see whether I can find any relevant detail there.”

Emeka nods. “We spoke of some of it then,” he says, quietly, frowning. “I believe Dhe’fere felt understanding not possible, by the end. It never occurred to me to memorize his words – Hulali shape his waves – because I never thought we’d face this again, let alone without him.”

Nkese’s breath is stifled.

Nkemi takes her mother’s hand, this time, squeezing lightly. She looks to Ale’ala next. The tsorerem inclines her head as well. “Wisdom does not end with Naulas,” she says, gently.

Now Nkemi looks to Nkese. Her mother breathes in deep, and straights, and smiles. “To have his thoughts preserved so is a blessing,” Nkese says, clearly. “It would do him honor to have you read them, ixúp’on.”

They talk a little longer. A time comes when Ale’ala straightens, and Nkemi understands. She helps Anetol to his feet, his legs shaky; she and Nkese both go with him up the stairs, and see him to his room to rest, his face gray and pale once more. Jinasa and Jiowa are gone, as well, when they come back down, and Ale’ala and Emeka look at one another still.

“Come by later today,” Emeka says, tiredly, sitting back against the cushions. His face shows his years, now, in the creased lines. “Whether you’ve found anything or not. I know you, Nkemi pezre Nkese; I am not sorry to have a prefect here.”

Nkemi bows, deeply.

The walk home she scarcely remembers; Nkese’s arm is through hers, and sometimes she thinks her mother walks for both of them, though she knows it cannot be so. It seems not to have passed, and yet she is there, soon, and her mother is tucking her into bed, smoothing her cheek, unfolding the wrap from her hair. Nkemi falls asleep with her mother praying softly above her, her voice like a song, and it is with deep gratitude that she lets go.

[Tom Cooke]

Emeka's Home • Dkanat

Morning on the 34th of Bethas, 2720

S
leep finds him in the end, but it’s not deep, and nor is it undisturbed by dreams. He dreams of being marked, first; he dreams of dark ink lines at his fingers, curling around his ears and the back of his neck, darker than the freckles, stark against his pale skin. He has other dreams, half-remembered on waking – dreams of blood. He dreams of lying amid the circles, the canyon floor cold but warming underneath his back, prickling with every sensation and every pain, his heart still beating but elsewhere.

Shattered into a thousand still-living pieces. His soul is still there, in the blood. It’s still there, in the lines.

When he wakes, the smell of food drifting up from downstairs still turns his stomach. He knots his fist in the sheets and buries his face in them, teeth clenched.

Risha, Risha, Risha, he remembers; he remembers cleaning the blood as gently as he could, and he remembers grunts and whimpers, and fingers curled gently around his upper arm. He curls up tightly, his knees pressed against his chest, his chest heaving with sobs.

For what feels like a long time, he can’t think. Tsasú’ki taps at the door once; he doesn’t answer.

When he can think, he thinks of Nkemi first. When she and her mother left him upstairs, the skin around her eyes looked bruised. He wonders if she’s looking through Dhe’fere’s old writings even now, sharp-eyed straight-backed prefect, and a knot in his chest aches.

Once, he chases a wild hare through his thoughts. Leave now, he thinks, before they have to find you splattered all over Serkaih. They might find him halfway back to Tsaha’ota; they might find him in the desert. But they won’t find him on Nkemi’s flooding doorstep, at least. Oh, gods, he hears himself repeating, over and over, in a voice that isn’t his. Oh, gods, oh, gods, oh…

Was it him, he wonders? Was it him or Kafo? His stomach twists at the thought. Two raen in Dkanat, for once. It should’ve been me, he thinks – and then that becomes a mantra – should’ve been me, should’ve been…

Eventually, he sleeps again, just a little more.

He wakes to voices, and soft footfalls in the upstairs common room. One is Ale’ala’s. It’s a long way back to the Cultural Center, even by donkey, and he suspects she’ll want to be here when Nkemi returns; he suspects there’s still work to be done with the dzúxúwuq. Dhafed’s voice is soft and deep, and Ale’ala laughs once, a somber attempt.

It’s still not dark, when he wakes. His mouth is dry and tastes of wine. He picks his aching head up and works his way to the washstand, where he discovers that he looks like shit.

He discovers, too, that he doesn’t want to look like shit when Nkemi gets back.

He shaves, first. It’s mostly a formality, but it’s been a couple of days, and he can just see the beginnings of red stubble prickling at his cheek. He must keep his hand steady to shave, and his hand remains steady after he’s done, washing his face and putting his razor and soap and strop away.

When Tsasú’ki raps at the door again, he’s ready. Downstairs, he strips his clothes off mechanically, and he doesn’t look anywhere but the high-set narrow windows. He washes himself mechanically, too. He soaks off the last of it – or what he can of it, because he can never wash himself of what he is.

When he goes back upstairs, his spine is straight and his legs do not shake. He thinks to take out his chalks, but he doesn’t want to mark the floor, and he doesn’t think there’s time; out the window, the light is turning soft gold, and the heat no longer presses against the walls. Instead, he settles himself in the middle of the floor of his room and searches for ised’usa.

He does not find it. His head aches. Even the soft wooden chimes seem too loud to him. Whenever he closes his eyes, he can see sweeping circles of blood glistening against the backs of his eyelids. Questions jostle each other, packed wall to wall. He thinks again of leaving; he knows he must stay.

There’s more quiet conversation from the common room, and he can hear nothing but it. “Ife came earlier,” says Emeka’s sharp voice. “Tsarero has made the arrangements.”

“You know I must stay,” says Ale’ala, almost too soft to hear, muffled by the walls.

“Serkaih may keep old scrolls fresh –”

“Emeka.”

“I think it’s unwise, Ale’ala.” Emeka’s voice is softer than he’s ever heard it. “It’ll be dark by the time Nkemi gets back. I don’t have to tell you what –”

“No,” Ale’ala says crisply. “You do not.”

There’s quiet, and the sound of footsteps. He sits in meditation a while longer; he doesn’t know how long. The windchimes grow louder, and the smell of frying flatbread drifts up from downstairs. He breathes it in, and his stomach doesn’t churn so badly.

He shuts the door quietly behind him. His red amel’iwe is tucked away; he’s wearing crisp white and vivid purple now, what he wore when he met Nkemi in Thul Ka. As he makes his way down the stairs, he hears the kitchen door creak.

“Nkemi,” says Emeka, muffled, and then a flurry of Mugrobi. At the stove, he thinks; the old man’s been cooking all day, his knotted hands busy, Jiowa and Jinasa half-scared to come in the kitchen. He pauses on the step only briefly; he steels himself, and works his way down.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Evening, 34 Bethas, 2720
The Heart of Dkanat

Nkemi wakes once, and then again. She wakes to drifting from herself, clinging to herself by her fingertips, by a thread, and she feels the strain of it. She wakes in truth from that, and Nkese’s hand is gentle on her cheek, and she feels the soft brush of her mother’s lips, and she sleeps once more.

She wakes again to the soft creak of the door, and heavier footsteps than her mother’s, with a soft shuffle to them. Nkemi shifts, and opens her eyes a bleary fraction, and sees Ifran looking down at her.

“Jara,” she says, softly, when he draws back, and turns as if to go.

Ifran sits by the bed, his face solemn. Nkemi’s face is solemn too, and she sits up, and reaches for him. His arms open, then, and he holds her close, and when she cries, it is into the warm strength of his shoulder, with his head bowed against hers.

In time there is kofi once more, and flatbread stuffed with onions and potatoes. By the time Nkemi has finished eating and drinking, the worst of the ache has gone from her muscles and her head, and she sits straight and upright.

She and Nkese go to the attic together, and they carry the trunk down to Nkemi’s room, and settle it on the floor before her bed. Nkemi sits, cross-legged, and opens it, and begins to sift through the journals. Nkese watches for a little while, and then she brushes Nkemi’s head with a kiss, and Nkemi hears, not so long later, the bleating of the goats outside as milking begins.

Ifran comes, then. He sits on the small chair by her desk, too small for him, and he has a small knife in one hand, and a small block of wood in the other. Nkemi sifts through the journals, checking dates, to the soft scrape of the metal on the wood, careful and rhythmic at first, and then slower and more precise.

In time Nkemi finds the journal – the date – and she begins.

I did not write yesterday. For all that I know well the value of setting down such things fresh, especially in these days when my memory is not as it was, I found that I was unsettled in my mind, and that to write of such horrors was more than I could bear. It would be true to write that my daughter needed me, and that Dkanat did too; the house was full until well after nightfall, though Benea still does not show her face.

Yet if I cannot look at myself in the fullness of honesty on these pages, then I can do so nowhere, and I shall know my honor is no more. I found myself unsettled, and did not wish to write. With the sun’s warmth, I find the words easier to pen now.

Yesterday morning, as he went to close the lanterns of Serkaih at dawn, tsochyusem Mitaire found the remains of tsorerem Aya’wo in a clearing along the path. I will write the details of it later; I saw her myself, some hours afterwards, and do not think I shall ever forget the sight.

Such an event has the feeling of an earthquake; it seems to shake the very ground upon which one stands. I cannot imagine any of the tsorerem or tsochyusem having done such a thing, nor any man or woman of Dkanat, nor even any of those whom visit here, the tribes whom we have called as neighbors since before my grandfather’s time. The scale of it suggests to me – as it did to ada’xa Emeka, with whom I unburned myself – that no single man or woman could have done such a thing.

I do not know what horrors await me in this quest for truth. It is my duty to search; I can do no less.

Nkemi read on, turning the pages. The description came, in time, and she read it, for all that she did not want to. Dzos’ayo, her grandfather named the green liquid in the rim of the bowl. Her heart, he wrote, had been removed. He wrote, too, of the bone knife carved with runes and left behind.

The sounds from Ifran are quieter, now, slow, careful carvings. Nkemi looks up to watch him, his gnarled, familiar hands as careful and even with the wood and the knife as they ever were. It is a small goat which is taking shape with his efforts; he smooths out one careful curved horn, and blows, softly, the last of the dust away.

Nkemi smiles. She reads yet more.

The Dzevizawa are still camped within a day’s walk of Dkanat; there is no one who wants them here, with the truth known. I have taken the responsibility upon myself to let them stay, for I know there is more yet to hear. The efotú has signaled that he will see me, although he has been hunting in the desert with each of my visits. I cannot think too deeply of his prey.

I know that if another such should befall us, responsibility will rest on my heart. I thought once that I should be dzúxúwuq until Imaan or Naulas took it from me; I never knew the weight of it before.

Ifran rises; he leaves the small goat behind, and Nkemi hears his footsteps shuffling quietly down the stairs. She hears the creak of the back door, and when he comes back in, the steady rattling of the kettle. She does not know if she can drink more kofi; she is not sure she dares do otherwise.

Nkemi reads on; she turns the pages once more.

The efotú told me of it, when I asked him outright at our second meeting. The first time, I think, he was trying to come to know me as a man. Whether I passed in his estimation or not – I shudder to think what such might mean – when we ate together, he answered my questions, and freely spoke his truth to me.

I cannot understand how such madness could infect an entire tribe. Even Ifran – it is wrong to write his name here, next to such things. When he is not himself, he is no danger, except in the way that a man endangers himself by straining too hard. That is what I asked Nkese first, when she told me of him; she swore to me that never once had he made her afraid in that way.

This is some other, different kind of madness. There is no regret after it, as a man who in his anger has hit a friend or a wife; there is no sorrow, either.

They believe that there are men and women in this world who are the purest incarnation of evil; they believe them lost, wandering spirits which take, endlessly, of one life and then the next. The ehofú told me that any man or woman I meet might be such a spirit, that at any time, with no warning or way to resist, such a spirit might take the place of my daughter, my son-in-law, or any other man I meet.

They believe that Aya’wo was one such spirit; they have spells which they believe can find them. The ritual of her death was meant to purge it from this world. I could not bring myself to ask much more of it. I cannot believe it, though I know they must. I watched Aya’wo grow myself. She and Nkese were of an age; my heart aches to remember the two of them playing. I spoke of this to them; they told me that the girl I knew was already dead.

Later, I shall write down more of the details of what we spoke of – as much as I can remember – though I cannot bear to, just now.

There can be, I am convinced, no arguing in the face of such deeply held madness. I am left, I think, with few options.

In time, in a little while longer, Nkemi closes the journal. The kofi cup has gone down to its dregs, by now; she is in the kitchen, with the warm light of the lamp to wash over her reading, Ifran washing the last of the supper plates and Nkese carefully sewing.

“I shall go to meet ada'xa Emeka,” Nkemi rises; she brushes her mother’s cheek with a kiss, and squeezes her father’s hand.

Nkemi puts the book away; she sets down the thin path in the darkness of the night, sandals soft against it. She comes in to the kitchen, where there is light and some brightness.

“Nkemi,” Emeka says. “You must have found something, to take so long,” his bushy eyebrows lift.

Nkemi’s face is a frown; she inclines her head, meeting his caprise. “I found what juelajara wrote,” she says, quietly. She glances over to see Anetol outside the doorway, his pale face and red hair caught by the light; she inclines her head to him as well. “I do not know whether it can help us; perhaps it may begin to explain –“

There is a scream from outside, high-pitched and terrified, a child’s voice; there are pounding footsteps, and lights which fly on throughout the village.

[Tom Cooke]

Emeka's Home • Dkanat

Morning on the 34th of Bethas, 2720

H
e descends the bottom step, sandals quiet on the carpet, and brushes Jinasa’s caprise. She offers him a tight, hard-edged smile. He looks about the sitting-room and what he can see of the kitchen, but Ale’ala’s nowhere to be seen; she must still be in her room upstairs, resting. He can’t see Jioma, either, and Dhafed and Tsasu’ki must’ve gone home. The kitchen is a whirl of soft warm light and steam, and down here, it’s thick with smells – flatbread, onions and potatoes and carrots, more smells he knows and can’t name.

The door’s open. Nkemi’s face is caught in the sharp lanternlight. She inclines her head to him; his heart is thrumming in his throat, and he dips his head back, his fingertips lingering on the banister. She’s wearing a fresh headwrap, and it’s vivid against the dark behind her.

He can just hear her over the bubbling of the stew. He steps closer, into the kitchen doorway.

The scream is like backlash, rippling through all of them.

He can hear feet pounding down the stairs behind – Jioma’s field rushes to meet his – Jinasa’s already in motion, but so is he, swinging breathless out the door after the prefect.

He’s seen Nkemi move like this a few times. In the Dives, once, breaking open the door and shooting up the fire escape, charging across the rooftop. Another time – he remembers it more clearly – on the stairs to the Arova, a little white dog cowering on the bottom step. He remembers the way her coat came open and her baton came out, brigk-fast; he remembers the sharp whistle from her lips.

There’s no whistle and no baton, but every whipcord limb is a bolt of lightning, and her back’s straight as iron. They all spill out into the street, where lights are coming on one by one in the windows.

A boch, he’s been thinking, a boch, a boch. Why a flooding boch, when there’s him? He can’t keep up with Nkemi, but he doesn’t have to; they all see her, and she’s not far off.

“Jeela!” cries a voice.

It’s the little girl Nkemi called to a few days ago; he recognizes her even in the half-light, even stumbling, gasping down the street. A few houses down from Emeka’s, a door’s hanging wide open, and an old woman in red is moving on stumbling legs to meet the girl.

Emeka moves past him. “Njeri!” he barks, his voice rasping loud. “Where’s Aafu?”

The old woman has Jeela by the shoulders; she’s shaking her head. The little lass is shaking something tsuter, and there’s a glistening patch on her face. She’s wearing a bright dress, the colors nothing but vivid shadows in the night, and there’s a mant hole torn in the hem.

There are tears streaming down her cheeks, and she’s stumbling over rapid Mugrobi. “Nkemi!” she shrieks the second she sees her, and wriggles out of the old woman’s hands. She freezes at first when she sees him, her eyes wide and blinking.

Her father’s not long. “Jeela!” His voice is ragged. He runs to meet her, almost stumbling to kneel and wrap her in his arms. “Ape’on,” he breathes, running a hand over her hair, “I told you not to play – I told you to come back home!”

The old woman Emeka called Njeri comes closer. “Jeela,” she says, and then something softer in Mugrobi.

“I saw him,” Jeela gasps, “the man with the bones! I saw him – Ameqran said – Osferon says that the man in white is a ghost, but I saw him! He’s a wika! He wears bones and I saw him and I –”

“Aaw’ihú,” Aafu says, kissing the top of Jeela’s head. “We’ve been looking for you all day. Roa, Roa,” he breathes, “Roa…”

His head is spinning; the stars above are spinning.

“I saw him,” Jeela sobs.

“I believe you,” Aafu says, “I believe you.”

Emeka’s lips are pressed close together. He looks at Nkemi, his bushy white brows drawn.