The Etoririq’dzwei, the Turga
He frowns, then, and looks down as well, back at the chalked lines of monite on the floor.
Nkemi remembers the brush of sage in the air, soft and slippery; she has a fleeting impression of glass tinkling against a roof, and shifting scents, mint and junia filling the air. The glass tinkles, or perhaps it is low, soft laughter from somewhere distant, somewhere she cannot make out – somewhere she does not try to reach.
It is imprinted upon her, still.
She wonders if he knows that they do not usually last so long, the brushing of minds – even when guided together by ada’na Ugoulo’s connection, even when the reaching of each mind to the other is long, and lingering, and cognomancy direct, not filtered in the slightest. There is a difference, Nkemi knows well, between reading and doing.
She cannot close her eyes and picture this garden which he so badly wanted to show her; but she knew it, then, like a wave rushing over her. She cannot pick out the droplets – the flowers, the scents – but she remembers the peace of it.
She thinks Anetol does too. She does not expect him to speak on it, but he goes on. The man I knew, he says, and she thinks of his words the day before, of journeys in the desert and truths glimpsed through smoke. His eyes flutter shut, and Nkemi wonders what he sees, behind his eyes, whether he can picture this garden still.
Nkemi’s hands are soft in her lap; she looks down at the sprawl of chalk across the floor. She smiles, when he winds back around to ised’usa, offering the word as carefully as he has all the rest. He looks up at her and smiles.
Nkemi smiles too. “I did,” she says, quietly. “In my last apartment before Vienda,” her hands fold together, though she does not grab hold. She sits in the midst of it, and does not shy away from looking at him. This smile is softer; her eyes crinkle at the edges, but that sorrow, too, she faces. She thinks of a shattered pot – of dirt spilling across the floor, and a kofi plant tumbled sideways, roots sprawled bare.
She thinks, too, of a planter box on a windowsill, and the sandaled footprint left within, the places where the tread crushed the mint, down, into the dirt, the scattering of dirt on the floor and the single leaf within.
Nkemi lets this, too, wash over her as it will. These memories are sharp; they are not soft impressions, but rather vivid, every outline clearly defined. There are spells she knows well, which every prefect learns, to heighten the memory and sharpen one’s recollection. What is thus seen cannot be unseen; it cannot be put aside so easily. Nkemi breathes in, deeply; there is the fresh smell of the water outside, drifting, and the wash of the cool breeze over her face. Cooler, she knows, than any in Thul Ka.
Nkemi goes on. “Plants like devotion, I think,” she smiles. “It seems to me those who care to know them keep them best.” Her eyes trace the lines once more; she turns and smiles up at Anetol. “A plant needs you to listen, but cannot speak. Perhaps this is why Ur’dzúxas is prized so highly among means of meditation.”