[Closed] First and Fierce Affirming Sight

[Tom Cooke]

Ire'dzosat • Thul’amat

Morning on the 23rd of Bethas, 2720

T
he external foci lead one to the internal. He’s not so sure what to make of it; there’s a lull, after, and the last flight of stairs has him turning it over in his mind, thinking of what he knows now of the gardens and of meditation. He doesn’t understand, at first, until he thinks – it’s like the opposite of being drunk. The thought slips away.

Though he’s winded and quiet, he notices what ada’xa Natete asks, and what answers Nkemi gives. There’s no break in the cheer; there’s something wistful – no, not wistful; homesick, maybe – at the talk of goats. Somehow, it doesn’t surprise him that Nkemi’s kin to a painter. He looks over at her again, in her bright head-wrap and all these colors that shouldn’t go together but do, and catches another smile.

He caught the grin, too – your lovely suit – and grinned back, through the odd prickling in his stomach. He resisted the urge, then, to look down at himself, and he has still managed not to, though he has been staring at his slim dark Anaxi shoes to keep his footing on the steps. The professor is wearing clean, crisp white, with lovely embroidery at the neck and the hems; Nkemi’s skirt swishes round her waist. They spoke easily. He feels trussed up in expensive threads, red-faced like the sort of jent he used to laugh at.

Still, the thought of his slacks bedraggled and covered in curly white baby-goat fur is nanabo enough he doesn’t think on it too long.

Back in the lower hall, then – and through a door he spied on the way up, and wondered about. The whiff of kofi’s strong; he follows Natete in, and looks about him at the pale calypt tables with their carvings, the small but cheery-glowing hearth shedding warmth and soft warm light at the other end. The brush of another field and he turns.

This exchange is comfortable. His smile brightens – no less shy; maybe more – at I’ll do it myself. He’s never taken part in kofi har’aq proper.

It tilts crooked at the rest, and he looks sidelong at Nkemi, raising just one red eyebrow. She’s stifling giggles behind her hand.

He hasn’t had dzutan often, but he’s had it once, before. A job’d had him looking after a baker that’d got in deep with some kov that wasn’t the King, and he’d paid half in birds and half in pastry. Was one of those things they’d let slide to keep things running smoothly; he was up to his ears in debt anyway.

It wasn’t the sort of thing hama’d’ve made, but it was a benny taste of something else. He doesn’t know he could tell one man’s dzutan from another’s – he doesn’t know he cares, so long as he can eat it – but he thinks the professor knows what he’s talking about.

They settle at a low table. The hearth is close, and he can feel its warmth licking over his face. The water, still, is cool, when he takes a draught of it from his hands; he spits out what of his evil he can, and he will ask the Circle’s forgiveness for what of it he can’t. “I pledge my honor to Hulali; I speak truth here,” he says. He’ll swear himself back to Roa here, too.

There’s a comfort to this, a belonging, if he searches for it. Nkemi looks achingly comfortable; Natete, too, even as he examines the beans with a special intensity in his dark eyes. The dry rasp and shuffle of them against the pan settles something inside him.

At the question, a little excitement prickles in his stomach, not unlike butterflies. “This last house is my first in Thul Ka; I landed at nine-thirty.”

He pauses, thinking on the other question. Overwhelming, he remembers Natete saying, with good cheer. Light, he thinks, conversational – but honest.

“There’s much to take in,” he says slowly. “We took a coach through Nutmeg Hill – I saw windows full of bright, fine fabric. We met a couple of lasses on the cable cars headed to Thul’amat, and Nkemi helped them find their way. I’ve gotten some stares” – he grins – “but I’ve been met with a great deal of hospitality.”

In the corner of his eye, he can see Ndulue approaching again with a platter. “And where does this dzutan come from?” he asks, still grinning, thinking that it must be worth two hours’ argument.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 23 Bethas, 2720
Ivuq’Way, Thul Ka

The beans roll against the pan with a familiar scattering weight; something in Nkemi’s heart squeezes and then lifts, and she, too, lifts with it. The smell comes next; she knows it, the faint beginning of kofi, in the echoes of her memory, stretching back to her girlhood. Her father does not take kofi har’aq, but he is fond of kofi. Nkemi understands, now, something of what must have happened there, but as a girl she remembers sitting at the table and watching her father jiggle the pan, the beans crackling and roasting; she remembers the cup of kofi every year on her birthday, a precious morning gift, with one spoon of sugar from her father and one from her mother.

She knows better, but for a moment she misses them so much she can barely breathe. She does; the feelings are water, Nkemi reminds herself. They swirl beneath her, and she sits atop them. They pass; they flow away. They do not leave her, but neither do they remain always directly beneath.

Nkemi blinks away the faint gleam of tears, and looks up.

“The core ingredients of the dzutan are the pastry,” Natete’s elbow rests on the table; he ticks off a finger, “the mixture of nuts,” a second finger, “and the syrup. Now, some people make the mistake of thinking of the last two as the same, combining them into the filling.” He shakes his head. “An understandable mistake, but hardly forgivable. The source and quality of the nuts matters a good deal; tsug from the Muluku Islands is scarcely the same as tsug from the Mineral Flats!”

Ndulue sets a small platter of the dzutan on the table with a smile; they are triangle-cut, delicate and flaky, with small bits of nuts tumbling from the side. He grins.

“Excellent,” Natete says, breathing deep. “Now, these dzutan are made in a traditional Thul Ka style,” his eyes gleam. “What was once called Ashutei style, in fact, back in the days of the eleventh century when dzutan was first brought out of the palace and into the city. The key is the use of lemon – it’s a subtle addition. One does not want the dzutan to taste of lemon, of course, but rather the faint sour taste in fact clarifies the sugar.”

Ndulue is trying, Nkemi notices, very hard not to laugh. She grins up at him; his face twitches, and he turns away, unsuccessfully stifling himself with a cough. He returns a few moments later with spiced corn crisps, dried fruit, and puffed barley, setting the small plates down.

“In fact,” Natete continues, “the – ” The professor turns, with the swiftness of well-honed instincts; he takes the edge of the pan and gives it a firm, practiced shake. The beans rattle and turn; the smell of kofi rises up into the air. Nkemi giggles, and breathes deep.

“Shall we only hear about them?” Nkemi lowers her gaze to the dzutan, longingly, and grins at Natete.

Natete chuckles. “Go ahead! Please. You remember how to eat them, my dear?”

Nkemi grins, and turns to Anetol; she straightens up, smiling, and parrots, obediently, not in the least reluctant to obey the unspoken request. “It’s best to put the base against the roof of your mouth.”

“It distributes the flavor more evenly,” Natete says, eagerly. “But please – don’t let me keep you!” He watches them both, with an intensity that belies any feigned casualness. Nkemi is giggling once more. She picks up the dzutan, turning it over diligently, and takes a small bite. She knows there are tears in her eyes once more; she blinks them away, and sets the remainder down on a small plate.

Natete is watching her; he smiles. “What do you think?” he asks.

“Delicious,” Nkemi promises. She giggles. “I shall have the rest with the kofi.” She takes a little palmful of the puffed barley, nibbling at it.

The first pop of the beans sounds from behind them. Natete shakes the pan once more, a firm, even motion, and sits again. He takes a dzutan of his own, turns it over, and takes a bite himself; he nods with satisfaction, settling it down. “The man is a master of his craft,” Natete says, reverent. “Would you believe I found him entirely by accident? There I was, rushing to catch the cable car – I just missed it, and with it, any hope of making my appointment. I stumbled into the nearest café, forelorn, intending only to drink a cup of kofi, and…” he extends both hands to the half-eaten dzutan before him. “We never know where His river will take us.”

[Tom Cooke]

Ivuq’way • Thul’amat

Morning on the 23rd of Bethas, 2720

A
nother smell peeks through the older, more distant scents of kofi and spices: kofi roasting, fresh and green and turning in the pan. The beans shuffle and rasp in the pan, and he watches Natete’s face, all its lines full of concentration, limned by the hearth.

He can feel the last sixty hours weighing down on him, tugging down his face and hollowing his eyes, aching in his back. Not even Iz was so comfortable; he thinks kofi har’aq in friendly company does much to clear the head, too. As Natete turns away from the hearth, he looks over at Nkemi and catches a glitter in her eyes. She blinks them away, smiling broadly. His smile doesn’t budge; still, he wonders.

Natete is explaining the three components of dzutan, he thinks, like he’d explain the three pillars of ib’vuqem.

On the platter Ndulue’s set down there are a few wedges of dzutan, all pastry and glittering syrupy filling, like a book whose pages’ve been stuck together by sweetmeats. He doesn’t take one yet, though his stomach turns over and growls.

He looks at Natete, intent, and then down at the platter. He studies the dzutan, trying to separate the syrup from the filling from the flaky pages.

“Lemon,” he repeats, raising both eyebrows and glancing up at Natete. Being honest, he’s not sure what difference it makes; he doesn’t think he could tell his old Rose kov’s dzutan from one that’d been made personal for the emperor in Ashutei.

It’s only when Ndulue comes back – he didn’t realize the young arata’d gone anywhere – he realizes how intent he’s been on the dzutan, deep frown and furrowed brow, hanging onto Natete’s words; it’s not until Nkemi speaks, a faint little quiver to her voice, he realizes they’ve all been half on the verge of laughter. He smiles, too, as the professor turns back round, another fresh strong waft of coffee in the air.

He glances up at Natete, down at the dzutan. He doesn’t much like being judged for technique, but he supposed he hasn’t got much choice. He turns over the dzutan carefully – feels the faintly sticky, crumbly texture of the pastry – takes a bite with the moist, sweet base at the roof of his mouth.

It’s easier to eat this way, granted; it still confounds him, biting into this flaky thing against the grain. But it’s sweet, and it’s good, and –

He sets it down, smiling wryly. “It doesn’t taste like lemon,” he offers cautiously, looking at Nkemi and then Natete, “but it’s – like the littlest gold shift, maybe.” He smiles wryly. “It will go well with the kofi,” he adds, with another smile for Nkemi.

Another stifled cough as Ndulue takes his leave of them. He looks down at the rest as he listens to Natete, wondering – he takes some of the puffed barley after Nkemi, and savors the delicate crunch.

Natete still hasn’t named the maker of this, or any, dzutan; he tries to picture the sort of person who makes dzutan in a cafe, or in palace kitchens, even.

He laughs, following Natete’s gesture to the dzutan. “Thul Ka seems to me a place you could get lost in,” he says, pausing to chew another few puffed grains. He thinks, more than the Rose, more than Vienda; he’s never seen anything like it. “But a good place for the finding, for it.”

The kofi beans have begun to pop in the pan. At first, it was just one or two snaps, but now the pan is all hiss and pop and shuffle, and he’s a glimpse of mottled pale green darkening to brown as Natete takes the pan again. The smell is strong and present, like a third guest at the table, just invited and not quite late.

Shuffle, rasp, pop. If he shuts his eyes, he can imagine a woodstove. He knows how to name the tightening in his chest, and he doesn’t want to. It’s too early in the day, by far, to be thinking of him already.

He keeps his eyes open instead, and looks at Nkemi and Natete. “I haven’t much time in Thul Ka until the Vyrdag,” he admits, his smile warming at Nkemi, “but I suspect the flood season’s a good enough time to see where His waters will take you. I’m told I won’t see a twentieth of this great city if I try.”

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 23 Bethas, 2720
Ivuq’Way, Thul Ka

The losing and the finding both,” Natete agrees, brightly. “Absolutely. You know, I have spent most of the last sixty years here in Dejai Point and Thul’Amat! And yet, three years ago, I passed a splendid afternoon on a tiny, winding street on the other side of the cableway. I had never noticed it before – had no notion it was even there! Including, I might add, a charming bookseller with a pristine first edition of Tsexi’s Drifting in Grains of Sand, an obscure work on the life of the fifty fourth Emperor of Ashu’tei, and his spiritual advisors.”

Natete pauses, there, and grins. “Strangely enough, I’ve never been able to find it again! I should almost think the whole thing an odd dream, if not for the copy of Drifting in my office even as we speak. Nkemi, you don’t happen to know Sparrow-picker’s lane…?”

“No,” Nkemi says, giggling, eating a few more grains of barley.

Natete sighs, and shakes his head. He nods with Anetol, smiling. “Not a twentieth,” Natete agrees. “But, then, the beauty of Thul Ka is that it cannot be seen. Even if I had found every street,” he grins, self-deprecating, “and walked them all, one after the next, by the time I finished the first should have changed so that I would need to start again.”

“The palace’s mapping project is stalled on similar grounds,” Nkemi puts in, smiling, eyes bright. “There are workable maps, of course, and the census, but by the time it’s finished it’s out of date.”

“Precisely,” Natete agrees. He lifts the dzutan in his hands; his nails are cut short, square and blunt tipped – a little ragged at the end, though only a little. “When he brought it out of the palace, the then-emperor, Hulali rest him beneath the waves, called it the food of Thul Ka. There is considerable debate among historians – you know how we are – over the meaning of it. Personally, I think he simply meant he was sharing it with the city, and hoped that the publicizing of his doing so would quell the socio-political unrest of the time!”

“But,” Natete continues, “I have, in fact, often thought that dzutan is – the emperor rather unwitting – an excellent metaphor for Thul Ka itself.” He turns the delicate, flaky pastry. “Uncountably many layers,” Natete says, smiling fondly, “brought together to make the whole. One could deconstruct it into its component pieces, but to do so would rather ruin it.” He pops the rest into his mouth, dusts his hands off, and rises to the hearth.

The beans are toasted, now; not black all through, but spotted here and there, and giving off the distinctive just-burnt-enough scent which settles in Nkemi’s heart. Natete sets it competently to the side, and puts water to boil. He tosses the pan steadily, evenly, cooling the beans further as the water settles into place, and settles it down to rest.

“The flood season is a good time to see Thul Ka,” Nkemi says to Anetol, smiling at him. “You shall have a bit of time to grow accustomed before the heat comes, and the first rains…” she grins, bright, and there is, again, the faintest bastly edge to her field. “There is always a celebration,” Nkemi says. “We all know – we understand – what else the floods may bring, but one cannot but celebrate at the first reminder of Hulali’s mercy. Where ever you are, in Mugroba, when they come - you will hear the drumming.”

The water is bubbling, softly; Natete pours the beans into a staunch mortar. He settles one hand around it, holding a heavy pestle, and begins to grind, stone rasping against stone, crunching the beans beneath its weight. Now the fresh smell begins to rise through the air; Nkemi sighs, happily. She takes one of the fritters, dipping it in the yogurt sauce, and nibbles at the edge of it.

“I’m sure you’ve had excellent kofi in Vienda, Incumbent,” Natete says, smiling, bringing the mortar to the table, holding it in both hands. He extends it to Anatole first, to breathe in the deep scent of the roasted coffee beans, the herbal notes of the grind, and to Nkemi next. She breathes in deeply, admiringly. “But there’s much to be said for placing a thing in context, or so says the historian.”

[Tom Cooke]

Ivuq’way • Thul’amat

Morning on the 23rd of Bethas, 2720

T
he professor’s like a weaver – or maybe he’s spinning, hands deft with spindle and twine, instead of turning a wedge of honey-glistening dzutan delicately over on its back. He can barely keep up with the conversation, glancing back and forth from Natete to Nkemi, laughing softly when she laughs at his mysterious street and the one first-edition he’s to show for it. But then, the cloth unfurls, and Thul Ka is dzutan.

He’s grinning as he listens, and then as Natete gets to his feet and turns.

He can imagine it, all the flaky, textured layers of pastry, the meat between them – and the syrup, sticking everything together so you can’t take it apart without making a mess of it. The vendors that flood the streets, the ever-moving carts, the little nooks, he imagines, that come and go with the seasons (and with the concords and birds). A little splash of sour, of bitter, here and there, to bring out the sweet.

He turns to Nkemi and catches her smile like an updraft. “Before the heat comes,” he puts in, raising both eyebrows, wondering what they’ve been walking through if not the heat.

But he smiles to think of it, of the drums; even though what else the floods may bring lingers, and he pictures flooded tenements and fish-smelling offices in Lionshead. If what’s out there isn’t the heat, then maybe floods are His mercy.

His stomach’s rattling with hunger; he takes another few puffs of barley and looks askance at the pan, which Natete’s put aside in favor of the pot. Water brought to boil has a pleasant hum, a drone of heat and pressure, a smell like warming metal that mingles with the dry toasted kofi beans. The beans, nearby, are spotted dark, and there are a few more delicate pops as the pan cools.

Somehow, he finds the dzutan in his hand again; somehow, he finds himself taking another bite, despite what he’s said. It’s these shaky hands. He’s halfway through another guilty nibble of honeyed nuts and pastry when Natete turns round again and finds the mortar and pestle; he puts the pastry down slowly on the plate again.

The pot’s bubbling; the professor’s grinding up the beans. He doesn’t think there’s holier a combination in Vita than this, though it makes his heart ache for what he misses.

Nkemi disturbs the yoghurt with a fritter, and another – now unfamiliar – smell wafts up, cool and milky and tangy.

What Natete says next settles ill with him, much as he wishes it hadn’t; a shadow passes over his smile, but he smiles anyway, because the professor’s offering him the great pestle full of sweet– dark-smelling grounds to breathe in. He takes the deepest breath he can, the smile swallowed up by a look of deep concentration. He shuts his eyes, and breathes it in again.

“In context,” he says, opening his eyes and smiling once again. “Indeed, professor.” Whatever he feels, he watches Nkemi take a whiff with relish.

The look on her face – he can’t describe it, but he feels it, deep inside him. He imagines he can see the ghost of that familiar line at her forehead, even for the smile on her face, like a comfort so deep it aches.

He doesn’t know when Jaeli came to the harbor; that wasn’t something they ever spoke of. The Turga came out in little bursts, like water through cracks in a dam, or maybe like hidden notes in incense smoke. It was no kofi har’aq – not for Tom, who had never been such an honest man – but he remembers him burning the beans on the stove and speaking of his kint’s eschana. There was a time when he’d make kofi and lay out his handmade cards, as was the way in some distant place – no, not today.

“In Vienda? Not so excellent as this, I think,” he says, keeping the wistfulness – or bitterness? – from his voice. He smiles warmly at Natete. “I can smell aniseed from the pestle,” his smile warms, “and – nutmeg… These kofi beans are some of the freshest I’ll have had, I think.”

He looks at Nkemi, then at Natete. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen kofi made like this,” he says. “Kofi seems to me to be as fine as the host that makes it.”

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 23 Bethas, 2720
Ivuq’Way, Thul Ka

The water is boiling behind Natete, now, vigorous. He pours the grounds into the pot; the smell fills the air already, deep and rich and vivid.

Natete bows his head. “Thank you, Hulali,” he murmurs, “for all the blessings you bestow on us, large and small, whether we know them or not. Thank you for enabling us to wind as your rivers do, to explore new lands and deepen ourselves and them in the process. May our minds meet like the joining of Your waters; may they flow into one another, and come together on a single path. In stillness, let there be depth; in movement, let there be joy. You are the beginning, and the end; You are all which comes between. We are grateful.”

Thank you, Nkemi thinks, adding her own voice to Natete’s in the silence of her heart, for your mercy; thank you for your kindness. All who are born in the desert know you for it; all who wander dry lands know your mercy in the first drop of rain from the skies, and the smell of it against parched dry earth; all who walk in the rivers of sand know your kindness in the green shade at the edges of an oasis.

Thank you, Nkemi adds, too, solemn, for the bends in my river; thank you, too, for letting it wind around to bring me home. She closes her eyes to focus all herself on the prayer; all she feels swirls beneath her like water, and she rests atop it, and is grateful.

When Nkemi opens her eyes Natete is pouring the kofi from the spout into three small, delicate porcelain cups, hand-painted with rich blue swirls. He sets the first before Anetol, and the second before Nkemi; he takes the third for himself. Nduele is approaching, but Natete rises, and takes the tray from him; he brings it around himself, bending forward to let Anetol take of the salt, the sugar, the menda – or even the cream.

Nkemi takes a bit of the menda for herself, stirring it carefully into her cup. She set the spoon down, and took a sip of the kofi; she had been smiling, already, from the smell – from the warmth – from the fondness in Natete’s eyes, and the familiar brightness of his voice, from the distant drifting sounds of Estuan spoken without harshness, from being home. The taste could not have been more familiar, nor more dear, than it already was.

Natete stirs a bit of menda and salt both into his cup, the spoon clinking vigorously against the delicate looking sides. He sets it down, takes a sip, and beams. “The joy of a freshly brewed cup of kofi is one of Hulali’s many blessings,” he says, firmly. “A daily blessing – perhaps two or three times a day, if we are lucky! – but one which should never be taken too much for granted.”

They wander, too, in conversation; they drift, a little longer. Nkemi finishes her dzutan, and Natete presses a second on her and Anetol both.

In time, Nkemi gently sets her hands on the oars and steers. “Natete,” she says – he called her prefect for two years straight before she could let go of the title of professor – “I thought perhaps we could talk a little of Serkaih?” She smiles at him. “Before Anetol and I make our visit.”

“Of course,” Natete says, rising to the topic with enthusiasm. He has already sat straight-backed; a new glow seems to enter his face, and spark in his eyes. He turns to Anetol, and grins. “I could – have! – give a full conference lecture on the subject. More than one, in fact,” he chuckles. “So, we shall have to narrow down a bit, I’m afraid. Nkemi tells me you’re interested in ib’vuqem?” Bushy white eyebrows, lift, lightly; he and Nkemi both wait for Anetol to fill in the spaces between.

[Tom Cooke]

Ivuq’way • Thul’amat

Morning on the 23rd of Bethas, 2720

H
ulali is not his god, not really. A prayer would, he thinks, taste strange in his mouth, though he knows no one part of the Circle can be broken off from the rest; it would taste strange in the way of something never tried, though he’s sworn to the floods and Hulali’s tits a hundred times now, with his careless Rose tongue. As the dark, rich smell blossoms out into the air, he drinks – breathes – in the words, shutting his eyes against the warmth of the hearth and the flickering shadows.

Whether we know them or not. The smell of kofi reminds him, warmer, more immediate – he can imagine a caress on even this face – of another. He can imagine, too, a voice reminding him it's his, whether he asked for it or not.

Silent, he thanks Hulali, too, for the depth in stillness and the joy in movement – and maybe, too, he thinks, the joy in stillness, the excitement of sitting and listening to the heart and breathing and wondering at the wonder of it; how the pulse sounds almost like rushing water, sometimes.

His eyes are still closed when he hears the gurgle of it into the cups, and he feels a little silly for how much he felt. When he opens them, Natete is already setting one in front of him – the first; he wonders why – and then in front of Nkemi, and one where he sits.

The sight of Natete taking the tray from Ndulue brings a smile to his face. When it comes to him, he hesitates; usually – but he thinks he’d be a fool not to take the menda in a new place, to learn this benny late morning by its blend of spices. He stirs his kofi careful-like, gentle-like, because he knows how easy these hands can break porcelain; his hand is shaky, today more than yesterday, and his spoon doesn’t so much as brush the side of the cup.

Conversation pauses for the first sip. It doesn’t taste like hama’s burnt kofi, or the fine kofi in the isles, or ada’na Ota’s; it’s different, as is the menda. He inhales, holds, rolls it round like he’d do a sip of Brayde whisky, automatic, and then smiles broadly when Natete speaks.

He should’ve prayed for another thing earlier, he thinks – he hopes Hulali, or Roa, or Vespe, or whoever’s keeping count won’t hold it against him – not to take the first sip of anything for granted. Or the second, or the third.

And there’s a second and a third, as conversation burbles and flows on, like a brook and then like a tributary and then like the river. He lets himself be carried on it. He’s quiet, even when his mouth isn’t full of dzutan or washed by kofi. The kofi’s dark, smoky, but not too bitter or burning.

They’ve spoken more of tucked-away side streets, and they’ve slid slow and easy into things deeper and heavier. Natete and Nkemi are both, he thinks, experienced, if kofi har’aq is a qalqa. He’s lulled to quiet for a little while when Nkemi takes the wheel again. He lifts his brows; he straightens, swallows a bite of dzutan, and sets his pastry down – turning it over, so the base is on the bottom again.

It’s a funny feeling. He smiles at Natete’s chuckle, but he can’t quite laugh; his throat is dry. When the professor says ib’vuqem, white brows raising slightly, there’s a little spark-flutter in his stomach.

“Yes,” he says, and takes a quick sip of kofi, setting the porcelain cup down just as gentle. “It’s – as you’ve written, professor, it’s not the easiest interest to have.” He quirks a brow.

How can he speak around it? Natete’s said little, one way or another, of ghosts; he knows this, at least. Instead of hunting ghosts or lambasting ramshackle clairvoyance, he’s stressed the importance of understanding – of looking at the world with a keen eye, of looking for hints and signs, of an open mind. Who are we to say, he hears in a newly-familiar voice, that their hesitancy to dismiss the warnings of…

His brow furrows. “I’m aware that ib’vuqem scholars were interested in Serkaih – interested in the burial practices of the ancient arati. Nkemi’s told me much about those,” he says, smiling sidelong. “But why did you choose to study the place?”

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 23 Bethas, 2720
Ivuq’Way, Thul Ka

Natete chuckles at the careful quirk of Anetol’s eyebrow.

Nkemi watches. She looks at Natete, first; it is a familiar sort of smile on his face, bright and enthusiastic. It’s the smile she noticed, first, about him, the strange old man sitting in the Serkaih Cultural Center, pouring over thin yellowed pages of books, and smiling. Nkemi had watched, unsure; he had looked up, and smiled, brightly, with a lifting of his bushy dark eyebrows, when Ada’na Aleala had brought him a cup of kofi, and they had laughed together.

Later that day, he had been clearing his throat, quietly, still reading, coughing into a handkerchief. Nkemi had not known, yet, how to make kofi in Serkaih, but she knew where the water pump was, and the clay cups too, and she had fetched a cup for him, and brought it, carefully, held in both hands. Nkemi remembers wondering if his eyebrows could lift so high they would soar off his face and giggling, and she remembers him laughing, too.

Nkemi knows, now, what she was looking for. She glances at Anetol now; his bright eyebrows are pulling together, and a frown tugs down all the lines in the corner of his lips, echoed in them. The expression lifts when he glances at her, a little smile curling on his lips; Nkemi smiles back, easily, her hands curled around her kofi.

“An excellent question,” Natete says, grinning. He rises; he takes the kofi har pot. Nkemi accepts more with a nod. Once they are settled, Natete sits once more.

“In fact, I remember having much the same argument with the department chair,” Natete chuckles, “when I first applied for a sabbatical to do field research in Serkaih. The scholars of ib’vuqem were, after all, largely based at Thul’Amat,” he takes another sip of his kofi and settles back. “They were, most of them, professors of the university, and ib’vuqem was not a movement which saw significant crossover with other universities.”

“Idowu says in his memoirs,” Natete pauses, and grins, “unpublished; there was considerable interest in publishing them after his death in 2050, but the scholars involved had little luck agreeing on a definitive version. It’s rather an interesting case study in how history shapes itself; I’m working on a paper on the subject, in fact. There are four versions of the memoirs, compiled by different contemporaries of Idowu from 2050 to 2062, when the project seems to have lapsed. There is considerable overlap, naturally, but all four differ in some of what they choose to include, and also in where they placed certain anecdotes or writings, and how they contextualize them.”

“Nonetheless,” Natete says, cheerfully, “in one passage which made it into all four versions, Idowu writes: in Serkaih, I was taught to listen. Initially I took this as quite a straightforward comment; Idowu is discussing a journey he took to Serkaih during his tseruh days with his mentor Tsauvo. They had a contentious relationship, even from his student days, characterized by mutual respect and some fairly spectacular fallings out; a natural interpretation of the passage is that Tsauvo won one of their many arguments during the journey.”

“What interested me about the passage,” Natete says, looking at Anetol, and, too, at Nkemi, “was, in fact, that this specific line about a trip which otherwise receives relatively little textual attention was included in all four versions.” Natete’s finger stabs gently down at the table, four times. He smiles. “I know, of course, that later in life Idowu conducted quite a few of his experiments in Serkaih itself, on the theory that these might be places where our world is closest to the Otherworld.”

“It’s rather a long-winded answer,” Natete says, ruefully. He grins. “Were I my own editor, I should strike the passage out and replace it thus: I wished to place ib’vuqem in context, and it seemed to me that they chose Serkaih as their context, as much as – perhaps more than – Thul’Amat.”

[Tom Cooke]

Ivuq’way • Thul’amat

Morning on the 23rd of Bethas, 2720

D
espite Natete’s grin, his throat tightens. The suspense as he’s pouring more kofi is nigh unbearable; any longer, he thinks, and he’d not be able to hear the gurgle of it against the delicate porcelain for the rush of his pulse. He reminds himself of all he’s been taught, and he sits straight-backed and breathes evenly, inclining his head gratefully as the professor stoops round to refill his cup.

The smell of kofi strengthens, blooms again smoky and floral. A waft of steam emanates from each up. When Natete resumes his seat and speaks, he listens.

He doesn’t speak until he’s sure the professor is finished. He’s no thought what plays out on his face; he doesn’t need to play at listening closely. He leans forward slightly, his fingertips perched on the rim of his cup. In the corner of his eyes, he can see Nkemi sitting with her steaming cup of kofi, and he can feel her eyes – intent – on him, and then Natete, off and on; she does not speak.

Memoirs, he mouths, then: unpublished. Natete’s bushy white brows are high on his forehead; he finds his own rising to meet them.

All of Natete pez Rejas’ work he’s read is published prior to to 2715 – some scholars from Thul’amat are easy to find at Brunnhold, some less so. Professor Natete is prolific enough – relative to other Mugrobi historians, especially those who brush the subject of imbali – in the great library’s dusty history corners, but he hasn’t followed his research, and knows barely enough to follow the winding road of his words now.

Memoirs of Idowu’s, he’s certainly never heard of. He stares intently at the old man’s face, breaking only to flick down – brief – to follow the gentle stab of his finger four times at the table.

Closest to the Otherworld. His attention pricks; the back of his neck prickles. He doesn’t glance toward Nkemi. He is glad there’s no editor present to strike out the passage.

“He mentions Tsauvo – a little – in What Our Ancestors Left,” he starts to reply, doubtful, when he thinks Natete’s finished; he glances quickly at Nkemi, searching for some expression, before he glances back. It’s odd, to be speaking with a published scholar; he’s never felt more like a human hiding behind a mask, or wearing a costume.

He doesn’t need to say that What Our Ancestors Left is of Idowu’s work the most polished, the most famous, and the one mild-mannered ib’vuqem text that’s most often referenced by Thul’amat historians. It’s no risqué grimoire, like They Are Heard – it’s just a study of Serkaih’s history and cultural impact – but there are hints, here and there.

Four versions of a memoir. He wonders at publishing a paper about the unintentional – or intentional – shaping of history in Mugroba. Is truth the common thread when stories overlap? He thinks of some of the tales he’s told; he thinks, for a moment, uncomfortable, just how much searching for a common thread might tell you.

Otherworld. The word echoes in his mind. He glances again at Nkemi, wondering; it strikes him, hard, for the first time, the memory her leaning forward, intent – you are well, now?

He pushes past the lump in his throat. “I’m a politician, not a scholar,” he lies, smiling sheepishly, “and I didn’t know about his memoirs, or that passage. But I’ve heard other scholars sympathetic to ib’vuqem, mainly Nkemdilim pez Jidi, argue that early on, Idowu and Tsauvo were only interested in ancient arati – their cave markings and what they built…”

His fingers inch around the kofi cup; he breathes in the scent.

“But later, Idowu says as much as you’ve said outright: that the ancient arati taught him to listen at the wall, so to speak, to listen where the borders were thin.” One eyebrow raises; his lip twitches. “You’ve written that Serkaih inspires an – awareness, professor, of things beyond the physical. I don’t think I ever understood what you meant by that.”

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 23 Bethas, 2720
Ivuq’Way, Thul Ka

Nkemi watches, still, taking a little sip of her kofi. Natete is bright-eyed, engaged; Anetol has watched him, closely, throughout, scarcely looking away. Once he looks at her, with the slightest widening of his eyes; she smiles at him, encouragingly, and wonders what he is searching for.

“Thul’Amat has always enabled – perhaps encouraged, especially in the days prior to the colleges – a certain relaxing of academic divisions,” Natete smiles. “Tsauvo made his home in clairvoyant conversation, but he was very much what we would now call an anthropologist. One needs only look at his study of the Dzevizawa tribe to know that; I believe he finished the research for it on that same journey with Idowu. Rather a fascinating footnote in the early history of anthropology as a discipline; he was a pioneer in more ways than one.”

“Idowu, of course,” Natete winds back, “could almost be called a historian, at least by inclination. That’s my opinion, naturally, unsupported other than by how much one comes to know a man as he reads him. What Our Ancestors Left is quintessential Idowu-as-historian, in my opinion. I imagine that’s why those who wish to honor Idowu’s memory without needing to delve too deeply into clairvoyance like it so well.”

Anetol begins again; Nkemi takes a little sip of her kofi. He comes around to it, carefully; he nudges, she thinks, once more.

Natete grins. “Does one not see the Circle in any place of enormous beauty?” he asks, lightly. He holds Anetol’s gaze; Nkemi understands, even watching. His kofi is steaming lightly on the table before him; he has not taken a drink in some time.

“There is, too, a weight in such places,” Natete says. “It’s what Idowu leans on, I think, as he writes, at least in most of his less-controversial moments. It makes him an easy face for ib’vuqem, because he speaks so well and eloquently of the value of listening. In a place like Serkaih, where the walls whisper with the weight of our ancestors, it is easy enough to let listening mean observation, and to put aside the rest. I have written that ib’vuqem stands sufficiently as a testament to our deep desire to understand – to listen – to connect, and that alone is sufficient that we should value it.”

Natete’s fingers tap, gently, against the table. He smiles. “I was never divinipotent enough, myself, to go deeply into clairvoyance,” he says, regretfully. “I was disappointed, as a young man, when my scores failed to get me into Ire’dzosat; now I think it a blessing. History has been my guiding passion; I have no regrets at all for a lifetime spent bringing the past forward to the present,” he smiles, fondly, all the lines etched deep into his face crinkling. As if remembering it, he takes a sip of his kofi.

In the quiet silence, Natete glances at Nkemi; he raises his eyebrows at her.

Nkemi is quiet; she thinks of a sprawling circle of ink, of writing shapes, of the taste of fear and of warmth, too, like a flickering candle flame. She turns away, and grins back at Natete. “What was it like?” She asks, smiling, “when you first saw the canyons?”

Natete laughs. “Words fail me, my dear,” he smiles. “Can you remember, yourself?”

“Yes,” Nkemi says, smiling. “I don’t know how old I was when I first visited. Perhaps five or six?”

“Not younger?” Natete asks, curious, his eyebrows lifting. “I should have thought…”

“No,” Nkemi says. “Not down into the canyon,” she traces a fingertip over the waves along her cup. She remembers because it was a special moment; she remembers because she had asked, before, and been refused. It is not a place, Nkese had always said, smiling, for the youngest. She does not know when or how her mother decided; she remembers climbing down the canyon walls with her, careful, holding onto her hand, searching for her father at the bottom.

Nkemi smiles, but something solemn flickers over her brow too. “But I am struck by it every time,” she says. “Like the first sip of freshly brewed kofi,” she grins at Natete. “It should never be taken for granted.”

Natete laughs. “You will, I think,” he turns to Anetol, smiling, “see for yourself very soon.”