[Closed] First and Fierce Affirming Sight

[Tom Cooke]

Ivuq’way • Thul’amat

Morning on the 23rd of Bethas, 2720

H
e wonders, again, at the Dzevizawa. He’s skimmed over them in his readings; they’re a footnote in both Ghosts of the Past and What Our Ancestors Left, mostly to do with Tsauvo and ib’vuqem’s beliefs.

Hama never spoke much of his bochhood on the Turga; he mentioned a few kints his own had passed, a few tribes from deeper in Mugroba, but never by their Mugrobi names. The thought of a galdor doing anthropology work on a bunch of tekaa pricks him, though not enough to bleed. His brow furrows, though he covers it up with a nod and a soft grunt, listening close.

He doesn’t move – doesn’t shift an inch – and holds the professor’s eye. He keeps the quizzical expression on his face, one brow raised a twitch.

The steam drifts from their kofi cups.

The place has a sense of the preternatural, he remembers, which may have gone a long way to inspire both those scholars of ib’vuqem and their ancient arati ancestors; certainly one feels the weight of such a place, of any such place, and that, perhaps, is the feeling to which Idowu and his contemporaries ascribed a thinning of the veil, or a closeness to the Otherworld. Regardless of what they believed, they understood the key difference between hearing and listening, or observing and understanding: as any clairvoyant conversationalist knows, a question cannot be answered without a connection made…

He continues to look at Natete when he glances away, toward Nkemi. The two exchange glances; he can’t read the professor’s face, and he doesn’t know what is on the prefect’s. Two white eyebrows lift, making a great many wrinkles on his forehead.

Nkemi takes the wheel again with gentle hands. She’s grinning brightly.

He finds a brightening for his own face, too, a smile that works its way – painstakingly, he feels – into crow’s feet. His field has remained indectal, and he reaches with a hand that shakes only slightly, less than it did on the stair, for his kofi. This time, he takes a sip, listening to the exchange.

“Very soon,” he replies, “if Hulali carries us on calm waters.” He sets the kofi cup down gently; the base doesn’t clink or clatter on the carved calypt. “Nkemi and her family do me a greater honor than I could’ve imagined.”

The thought springs unbidden into his head: I hope I’m worthy of the honor. He doesn’t know where it came from, or what weight he feels in it.

The impression when she spoke was enough to knock him flat. Not into the canyon. It still sweeps through his mind, like the distant memory of a single note: he feels a wide, empty sky, stretching above him like a thread of blue silk. He’s just before the brink, bodiless and weightless, as if the wind could snatch him up; one step, and he will look down and breathe in all the colors, fill with them. But he is not quite at the edge, and all is desert.

He swallows a lump in his throat with the distinct feeling it isn’t his. Natete has said something, he’s aware, and is laughing. He hears Nkemi giggle.

Someone’s asked him a question. “Ah – yes,” he replies, smiling warmly, still breathing in a swirl of color with the smell of kofi. He takes a sip, and tastes the vibrant floral spices better now. “She told me a great deal,” he adds, “of its historical significance, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard of Tsúpik pez Oqi, or his resting place…”

Natete is a skilled, vibrant, and dizzying conversationalist. If the third step of kofi har’aq is meant for serious conversation, there’s plenty of laughter here. And they move through one subject to another – the mysterious disappearance of Tsúpik’s smallest finger-bone, months passed at the Cultural Center, the ghosts of old projects.

When the third cup is poured, they’re discussing research on overlapping burial practices between the ancient arati of Efot’ruchy and what is now Paora Fo, and he is mostly quiet; when Nkemi takes the last sip of hers, he’s laughing, bastly bubbling out into his field.

He’s the last to finish his third cup, and discussion has wound down. The prospect of unfolding his legs is unpleasant, but the light that slants through the high windows – catches on the steam that has swirled from many cups – has changed, and the professor is gathering the tools.

“Thank you,” he says in turn, once he’s gotten to his feet, bowing deeply to the professor. He adds, almost carefully, “If the long flight has me weary, you’ve been a host like an updraft beneath my wings.”

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

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

Welcome home, Nkemi,” Natete says, quietly, Nkemi’s hands in his, standing at the bottom of the stairs. He smiles down at her – not so far as he used to, but down, still. She smiles, too.

Anetol is in the washroom, and it is only the two of them, and he is looking at her. There is an unfamiliar sort of frown on his face, one Nkemi cannot quite place. She sees the faintest movement in his face towards the washroom, but he does not turn; his attention is on her, still. “Be careful,” Natete says, finally. He smiles, and it is soft, and crinkles all the lines around his eyes. “To make a connection is always to give something of yourself, even if it is so often returned manifold. Sometimes, I wonder if we can ever know, really, what it is we give.”

Nkemi’s eyes widen; she does not think she has ever heard him speak this way. He squeezes her hands lightly, and lets them go. Then, unexpected, he leans forward and kisses her forehead, beneath her hair wrap. “Come and see me when you get back,” Natete says, grinning. “If you can spare another house or so to help an old historian procrastinate.”

Nkemi giggles. She hears the door to the washroom closing behind Anetol; there is the ruffle of student voices in the hallway behind them. “I hope to,” she promises. “His waves keep you.”

“And the both of you!” Natete grins. “May His currents guide you well.”

Nkemi settles her arm comfortably through Anetol’s once more. She is smiling, brightly, as they wander out back outside; the early afternoon sun cuts a sharp line at the edge of the building’s shadows, vivid against the smooth-paved ground. They drift through the red brick, dappled cacti on either side casting their own, tiny shadows. It is late, now, for garden-work; Nkemi knows well that most of it is done in the morning or the evening.

As is always the case, the campus is a little sleepier, a little quieter, around lunch time. It is not truly hot this time of year, but the routines of the day are built around it; some boarding schools have a little break in the early afternoon, although Nkemi never wanted to nap then – not like during her Thul’Amat days, when sometimes nights wound into mornings, the days spilling over into one another, carried on waves of duty or pleasure, or, sometimes, the intermingling of the two.

Nkemi knows where she takes them. Thul’Amat is a map she learned early; Thul’Amat is a map she began to put together before she ever saw her first map. It is the first place she got lost; there is much to be said, Nkemi knows, for getting lost, and for the finding too.

Idisúfi is at the end of a long pavilion all its own, dotted with columns, one after another. They, like the cacti, cast little round circles at the bottom where the sun catches them on the side; in the evening, and morning too, they stretch out long against the walkways, swinging this way and that. The sight of it takes her breath away, for a moment, when they round the corner; Nkemi comes to a stop without realizing it, her arm jerking lightly against Anetol’s.

She grins at him, sheepishly, and begins again. They wander along the side of the pavilion – not through the bright sunny middle, but down the sidelines where trees dapple the ground with shade. Students are sprawled in the grass and benches off the edge; others move with quick purpose through over the sun-warmed stone.

“This,” Nkemi says, proudly – fondly, “is Idisúfi.” They draw up to the front; Nkemi stops at the base of the steps, tilting her head back to gaze up. The words on the front of the library are written not in Estuan, but in ancient, curling Mugrobi script. “It says,” Nkemi glances at Anetol with a grin, “Knowledge whispers well within.” She translates it for him; she breathes the Mugrobi like a prayer, and the world seems quiet, for a moment, in the wake of it.

The door opens; two students come out, and their voices, quieted inside, raise to a fever pitch of giggling.

“Would you like to enter?” Nkemi asks, just a little hopeful.

[Tom Cooke]

Ivuq’way • Thul’amat

Morning on the 23rd of Bethas, 2720

N
obody told him that the middle of the day has Thul’amat stretched out like a cat in a patch of sunlight. Students still bustle here and there, flitting across the walkways, moving with satchels and armfuls of books from one building to the next. But sees many sprawled in the shade, some studying, some napping; the stones glow with the high sun, and the gardeners busy-tending the succulents and trimming the hedges are gone.

He can see why. He meant every word of what he said at kofi; Natete’s company has been like an updraft, and he thinks he’s a little more breath left in him, a little more strength to heave through the day. He can feel the kofi buzzing in him, can taste the smoke and spice still in his mouth.

But he’s slower-moving, his arm looped through hers, though she matches his pace and smiles no less brightly than she has before. Before the heat, he thinks again wistfully, feeling it prickle underneath his waistcoat.

They haven’t spoken much since leaving Ivuq’way. He doesn’t know exactly where she’s leading him; he’s happy just to let her guide him, and he does not ask.

He remembers how eagerly she spoke of Ire’dzosat earlier, of the other meditation gardens – and thinks he understands, now, too, a little more of what Ire’dzosat must mean, having heard it on the historian’s tongue. He turns it over in his mind, thinking of Jiowa, imagining Nkemi pouring herself into her blessing of Vespe, as they walk. He’s flushed – it feels like Roalis in Anaxas – but the breeze ruffles his hair and his sleeves and his hems, and he’s very content.

When she freezes, at first, he scarce notices; if the breath is caught in her throat, it’s caught in his, too.

She grins at him, and he grins back, just briefly, because then he’s looking at the pavilion with its high columns and its sun-bathed stone. As they start walking again, sticking to the dappled, tangled shade, he looks at the building at the end of the walk, his brow furrowing. The carving above the the great doors is too blurry to read from here; as they draw near, he makes out the loops and dots of Mugrobi set into the stone.

A slim, serious-faced young man passes on one side, distracting him momentarily; he doesn’t feel the brush of a field. He’s headed for the steps.

“Idisufi,” he repeats, and feels the whisper in the word. His eyes widen; he understands immediately, and as she speaks again – knowledge whispers within – breathes through a rush of trilling Mugrobi, dzerewidisufiq’atu, and he breaths in deep.

Would you like to enter? Nkemi asks, and he looks at her and laughs softly.

He needs a moment standing there, looking up at the old stone face of it. A couple of lasses spill out the front door, whispering; they giggle loudly as they come down the steps. The imbala passes them by, takes the steps two at a time – he watches, smiling wistful – goes inside, shutting the door behind him.

“Very much,” he says warmly.

He’s silent, reverent, as they ascend the steps.

He feels a tickle of uncertainty, before they push open the doors; he’s not sure why the prospect of entering this place troubles him more than entering Ire’dzosat. He remembers, again, a little boy with glasses, and pushes the thought away.

The entry room is not much like the great library at Brunnhold’s; he supposes, again, it couldn’t be. Two young-looking galdori – galdori? – move about behind the heavy wooden desk at the end of the hall, across a sprawl of mosaic tile in more colors than he can name. He looks down at it, first, distracted. This close, it’s just splotches and shards of color, but he imagines if he were above it – if he were somewhere in the vaulted ceiling, or on a balcony – it might take a shape…

There are not many shelves here, though a few carts on wheels near the desk have a scattering of books on them. Long wooden tables perch around the hall, with a scattering of students; there are carrels in the shade of the porticoes. The room is well-lit, though another young woman in a bright, asymmetric-wrapped dress is wafting about a mezzanine overhead, pulling thick white shades over the high narrow windows.

All is quiet, save a few whispers and the soft click of footsteps.

There are dozens of questions he could ask. He knows he’s permitted whispers, at least, here; he even hears a stifled laugh from the front desk, though it’s quickly hushed. But what to ask? How are the books kept in the other wings? How do they deal with flood season?

Instead, as they step quietly to the center of the mosaic, he simply grins at Nkemi. “Thank you,” he whispers softly.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 23 Bethas, 2720
Idisúfi, Thul Ka

In the sight of Idisúfi is wrapped the memories of more than sixteen years. They are tangled up; if she tries to tease them apart, she cannot. Nkemi remembers when the smooth bulge above the base of the columns was the height her hands wished to skim; she looks now and sees them nearly a foot lower. She would have to reach down to brush them, though she still could, and easily; she has not grown so much.

Perhaps she has. Even though it is the libraries of Ire’dzosat where she made her home during her last years of study, during her tseruh – in the small carrel which she called her own, during those last years, where she slept, more than once, curled up on the floor, hastening to meet some now-forgotten deadline – there is a place in her heart for Idisúfi. She does not need to choose; there is space enough for both in the warmth of her memories.

She remembers tears amidst the shelves; she remembers rushing in to look for friends; she remembers peaceful hours of reading on slim tables amidst the shelves, in silence or in quiet company. She remembers searching the shelves, again and again, looking for some book or another which was eluding her; she remembers wandering as if lost, and letting her gaze catch on whichever book drew her fancy, exploring the title and the contents within, with no purpose but wonder.

Anetol repeated the name after her, in the half-whisper which so becomes it.

They step inside. The entryway is quiet and busy; Nkemi squeezes Anetol’s arm against her, very lightly, in acknowledgement of his thanks, and she smiles. “This is the loudest part of the library,” Nkemi says to him in a soft low voice – your Idisúfi voice, she remembers Ada’na Daotse saying sternly, must be as quiet as the whispering wind; you are no sandstorm, but a gentle breeze.

“They say,” Nkemi murmurs, smiling, although her voice is still soft, “that students climb to the roof, sometimes,” she glances up to the gleaming windows set into the vaulted ceiling overhead, which let in shining light through and drift it over the mosaic, “to find patterns in the tiles below.” They are slanted, carefully built; unlike the narrower windows on the mezzanine, they never let in the light direct, and must never be covered.

At one of the tables nearby is a mess of preparatory school children; these are all clad in matching brown. They are a little older than the ones who wandered through the campus earlier, and a little more intent, too; books line the table, and heads are bowed, solemn and studious, over them; they whisper together, although the loudest noises among them are the scratching of pencils over paper.

There is the West Hall, the East Hall, and the North Hall; Nkemi debates, for a moment. She could take Anetol to one of the antechambers off the entryway, where there might be any sort of exhibit of old papers; half the fun is not knowing what you will find. She could take him, she knows, to show him the route in the old red leather bound atlases.

But her feet guide her, and Nkemi follows them; she and Anetol drift westward, through the open hall. There are thin wrought metal gates here, more delicate and decorative than sturdy, and a student absorbed in a book who sits beside them. He glances up when their fields drift into range, inclines his head politely, and goes back to his reading.

Nkemi unlocks the gates, and takes Anetol into West Hall. On the other side, with the gates behind them, it looks no different; they drift past students settled at tables here and there, a bit older than the ones outside – no yellow- or brown-clad children here – but equally absorbed in their work.

“The ghosts,” Nkemi says, softly, smiling straight-faced, “are mostly rumored to be upstairs.” Her eyes catch on a nearby banister, carved calypt-wood, leading up; she lifts her gaze to Anetol, and watches him, for all that her face lifts in a grin.

[Tom Cooke]

Idisufi • Thul’amat

Morning on the 23rd of Bethas, 2720

A
s she takes him along, he looks up, up – up a mant long way, he thinks – so long that the light blurs, diffuses, and slants gentle as a bloom of baby’s breath over the tile. He looks at it as they pass over it, too: shards of brilliant cobalt, warm burgundy, crimson like sap; his eyes flick from one piece of tile to the next, all different sizes and shapes, trying to make sense of it.

He imagines Aremu climbing to the roof, looking down for patterns instead of up. He smiles as they pass a table full of bochi in brown. These are – twelve, maybe, thirteen? Not so old as Jiowa and Nkeji, but not so young as the ducklings that crossed the Walk earlier.

He passes the brush of a half-dozen eddles, dasher and delicate and coming into focus, not unlike the light from the vaulted roof. None of these bochi are imbali, he realizes, with the tiniest frown. There are thick books open and scattered about the table between them, one that’s being passed over a shoulder and to another pair of small hands; as it passes, he gets a glimpse of a page covered in Monite and diagrams.

Another scattering of boys studies at a table nearby. As they pass out of the entryway, he hears a loud whisper in Mugrobi – something, something, Ared’ur – he catches one’s eye and waits for the laughter he’s come to expect from lads and lasses, wondering if he’s already a little red about the cheeks with sunburn.

No laughter; a pair of eyes studies him, hard, and then a small frown, and then a momentary quieting. Something’s whispered, sharper, that he doesn’t understand.

He’s not sure which direction they’re going, not at first; he doesn’t come to it until they reach the gate, and he stands alone again as she moves to unlock it. He inclines his head and shoulders at the older lad.

He feels a prickling again, as they pass through and into this quieter, closer place; it’s all along his arms, creeping down his back, making his hairs stand on end. He breathes in deeper, here, the smell of books, of such stuff that goes into binding and ink.

The gate was ornamental, he knows, thinking of the delicate arcs and lines of metal; he remembers her unlocking it, thinks perhaps there are some ways in which it was not. He has the feeling of trespassing ever deeper, like a man stepping through a cave, flame-light flickering over ever smaller walls, wondering when the rocks will fall behind him.

Perhaps they’ve already fallen, a long time ago. It’s a brief feeling; he tells himself it can’t hold him, and pushes more shadows out of his head. He raises his eyebrows at Nkemi’s grin, though he can’t keep one of his own off his face.

He feels her eyes on him, still. It’s hard to look away, for a moment – for maybe the first time, he’s conscious – he knows he must let her look, but he doesn’t know what she’ll see, if he looks away toward the lovely curving banister and up into the dim slanting light and drifting motes of the second floor.

He doesn’t know what he’ll see, being honest.

He does; he looks away, up the stairs. He wonders if she’s searching him for belief. And do you? he gets the sudden urge to ask, so much that he tastes it on his tongue. Do you believe in ghosts? If you knew what I did, you wouldn’t think it was madness.

He loops his arm in hers, this time, gentle but intent. He finds the smile still on his face, though it’s softened to something he can’t picture. “Shall we search for them?” he whispers, very soft.

He isn’t lying, he thinks. He looks back upstairs, thinking – he knows there won’t be any upstairs, at least, not of the kind one usually speaks; not of the kind ib’vuqem searched for. But he’s read in Natete, at least, that the borders blurred for ib’vuqem, and he doesn’t himself know quite the difference between the ghosts that’re in the back of your heart and the ghosts that you can see with your eyes and feel with your field. One kind, he supposes, leaves slippery, gleaming stuff.

He gestures, and of his own accord starts toward the stairs, though he won’t pull her if she hesitates. “It’s a natural place for them, isn’t it?” he asks, the smile still – still – on his face. “Something about all the books.”

The stairs are soundless, for all their age; creaking, he suspects, would not do in the hall of whispers. He thinks at least that Nkemi knows the sort of ghosts in places like this – he thinks he can feel it, too, the weight of memories here. He tries to imagine her in yellow and then in brown, and then studying long hours the grimoires here for tseruh work. Not all ghosts are bad, he reckons – trying not to let the irony of the thought slip into his smile – but some are heavy, lingering.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 23 Bethas, 2720
Idisúfi, Thul Ka

Anetol’s gaze holds hers for a moment, but his head turns and follows her direction up the stairs. He is smiling – has been almost every moment that they have spent inside Idisúfi. Nkemi knows she is as well; she cannot but, amidst the drifting motes of light and the warm memories.

She remembers her first visit to West Hall, in the term break between her admission to Ire’dzosat and the first days of classes. She went with an older student, a girl who had graduated from Tso’opuq several years earlier, Jomi; she had worn her regular clothing, not her uniform, and Jomi had walked her confidently, unhesitatingly, past the guard and through the gate, and into West Hall.

There is much to be found, Nkemi knows, in every corner of Idisúfi; each of these books, down to the very least, had beauty to be found within, if one looked with an open mind, and wisdom too. But it is hard not to treasure the West Hall, and all its sanctity; it is hard not to still feel, somewhere deep inside, the glow of the girl she had once been.

Anetol is still smiling; he loops his arm through hers and whispers. Nkemi laughs her Idisúfi laugh, a careful quiet exhalation – giggling is a common enough trespass against the rules of silence, in one’s early years; it is easy enough to tell an Idisúfi newcomer from a veteran by whether they have master the laugh.

“Because of all the memories within?” Nkemi whispers back, curiously; her eyes linger just a moment of Anetol’s face. She understands something of what he might mean; most of the authors who have written these texts have long-since returned to the cycle. They reach forward – speak forward – through what they have written; even though their souls are elsewhere, now, perhaps many times over, their wisdom remains.

They climb to the top of the calpyt stairs. The second level is open in the center, atrium-style; one can look down on all the heads and books below, spread out over the tables; there is a mosaic beneath here, too, mostly covered, almost invisible from the ground because of how it sits between the tables. Nkemi tugs Anetol over to the balcony, and gestures down below, smiling at him.

It is not quite a spell circle – it is not quite not a spell circle. There are no words of monite written on the floor, no actual letters, but the jagged shapes traced into the stone give one a sacred feeling, all the same. If it ever was a spell circle, Nkemi thinks, it has been broken and re-shaped into something else, tiles shuffled around to make a new sort of shape. But it is a circle in broad sweeps of pale tan tiles all the same, studded with bits of black, shaped with swirling lines drawn together.

Nkemi has not taken her arm from Anetol’s; she draws him back from the edge, as easily as she guided him there, and takes him to wander the shelves. They are long and tall, and set well apart; small carved stools, here and there, let even the shortest of students reach the uppermost. They are bound books, mostly tan and brown, but some red or green or blue-spined – some expensive, gilt-painted leather – some simple, and old and fragile looking, although the truly fragile are kept elsewhere. Here and there, set against the edges of the shelves, are glass cases with books inside.

Nkemi knows where she is going; she thinks she has, perhaps, known all along. She sent a letter, inquiring; it is not very easy to get permission to view the copy of They Are Heard which sits in the archives. But she remembered, or half-remembered, and so she asked.

They draw down the shelves; living conversation, first, and then perceptive, and then to the far end of the wall, next to large long windows drawn down with thick white curtains. The light Is still vivid-bright, for all that it is only Bethas, for all that the sun is not shining down direct. Nkemi takes them past the edge of the window, to a darker, quieter corner.

They stop.

There is a case, before them, smooth polished glass, locked; a small placard set inside, written in elegant script only just recognizable as hand-written, is the word ‘Ib’vuqem’ across the top, and a good deal more below, most of it just shy of snide. But settled above it at two thin yellow pages – the first two pages of Idowu pez Olufemi’s foreward to They Are Heard. Nkemi lets go of Anetol’s arm, and lets him go forward, if he likes.

[Tom Cooke]

Idisufi • Thul’amat

Morning on the 23rd of Bethas, 2720

N
kemi laughs a delicate little laugh, one that’s barely a breath. He doesn’t dare try; he doesn’t trust his own laughter – in any place, in any body – not to find that special windpipe that makes for a spectacular snort. As they ascend the steps, his fingertips gliding over the pale smooth calypt, he imagines snorting in the middle of Idisúfi. It’s not a fate he’d wish on anybody, much less himself, much less Nkemi whose arm is linked with his, who’s smiling with all the love of this place.

It smells in here even more strongly of old books. He takes another deep breath, and he thinks of so many things – of sleepless nights spent cutting apart the pages on books – he must nod; nodding is all he can do.

He is not sure, again, where she’s leading him, but he lets her guide him toward the railing to look over the edge at the first floor. His intake of breath is quiet enough to suit, but he reaches out a hand and it tightens on the railing nonetheless.

“Memories,” he whispers, eyes tracing the circles. He thinks he catches half of a monite rune, and then he looks closer, and he can’t even decipher half; it reminds him, he thinks achingly, of the first time he ever saw an inscribed ward. “Hopes, too.” His hand loosens on the railing; he’s smiling.

There’s something soothing about it, this voice that comes up not from his throat but from his lungs, and out of his mouth; if he heard it without knowing who it was, he wouldn’t’ve thought it was him. There’s more of him, he thinks, about the cadence and the lilt of his accent, more that he can hear when his voice isn’t getting in the way.

He can’t think what of him is in it, or why he feels so; he doesn’t want to linger on it, only to settle comfortably into the whispering back-and-forth. It seems to him to bring out her accent, too, lilting broad and flowing, with none of the harsh hissing consonants of Anaxi Estuan whispering.

As they move away from the balcony, as he follows her among the shelves lined with books, he thinks how easy it must be to imagine other sorts of ghosts here – the kind that you can see, the kind that he has seen. He smiles to think of it, his eyes lingering on rows of half-glimpsed glinting titles, glass cases with books older and more worn inside. Once, he sees a glass case covering not a shelf but rows and columns of cubby-holes, not unlike a wine rack. Inside are scrolls, older-looking than any of the books.

The make of this place means that it is never loud; the footsteps are soft and do not carry, and no sound leaches in through the walls, no birdsong or shouting from the courtyard. But he catches snippets of whispers, sometimes, from the floor below, when they pass over certain areas, under certain archways.

He looks at her profile, smiling but intent ahead. She knows what she’s looking for, as if the map is in her head. He supposes it must be; all around them are grimoires. He imagines this is the place to be, if you’re studying for the blessing, if you want to get into Ire’dzosat. He wonders at the memories.

It’s hard to see it in the shadow beside the window, even with the opaque curtains drawn over it; they all seem to glow. Nkemi disentangles her arm from his, and he steps forward, his eyes adjusting. The first thing he sees is his reflection in glass; then, two yellowing pages, then the placard with the name.

He breathes in and out, his smile softening. He takes the spectacles from his waistcoat, settling them on his nose and waiting for his eyes to adjust to the smaller writing on the placard. He thinks – unbidden – of the boy.

… some clairvoyantists of Thul’Amat sought, he reads, perhaps without the aim of finding, which may nevertheless continue to yield lessons about the practical uses of clairvoyance. He spares it only a cursory glance; he looks up, at the pages, with their small, fading print.

The word Dzevizawa jumps out at him. He skims ada’xa Idowu’s words on each page, lingers perhaps a little longer than he thinks is polite.

When he turns away, he’s taking off his glasses, tucking them away. There’s something smile hidden in the folds of his smile; he meets Nkemi’s eyes, unabashed of it. “More spirits here than ghosts, I think,” he whispers, when he is close enough. Maybe memories aren’t ghosts; he can’t know. Is a living thing a ghost? “They’re so much more than all the glue and paper and leather and ink.”

That’s all he used to think they were. He takes another deep breath, looking out over the shelves – clairvoyant grimoires, this close. The boy must’ve struggled to read, he thinks, and somebody caught it, and instead of thinking he was mung, they got him a pair of glasses.

He couldn’t quite face what it said about him; he shied away from the thought, himself as a boch with glasses. What’s done is done. He can’t say he gave all of himself, he thinks; he hopes he can someday. “This place feels alive to me,” he whispers again, more firmly, smiling broadly.

Somewhere underfoot, breaking the muffled silence, a tiny giggle breaks out. It doesn’t last long; there’s a barely-audible hush.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 23 Bethas, 2720
Idisúfi, Thul Ka

Nkemi thinks – there are books she could have looked for here, today; there are books she could find. She has questions, now; they are questions she could have asked four years ago, at the end of her tseruh, and in all the years since. She did not ask them – she did not search further – and now, in Anaxas, she cannot. It is hard enough to pass books from Thul’Amat to Brunnhold, let alone to Vienda.

The rainy season feels like a gift, in more ways than one, and Nkemi wishes to embrace it. There are days off, even for a prefect; there is much to do in such time, so many people she wishes to see, but there is are Idisúfi, and the libraries of Ire’dzosat, and they, too, are lke treasured friends.

For now, she stands and waits and watches; this is not her time at Idisúfi, but Anetol’s. He is gazing down into the glass case, looking at the first few pages of the book whose pursuit cost him dearly, and which, however inadvertently, brought them together. It is spread open before him, the first few pages; the rest, she does not know how to find, but she is glad to have brought him these. Nkemi does not begrudge him his time.

He drifts back, when he is done, smiling. She grins at him, easily, and takes his arm again.

“They are each an Ever all their own,” Nkemi says softly, looking at the shelves. There is something which dwells beneath the surface of her voice, but it does not belong here, not just now; it is not something from which she can ever be parted, but she sets it aside, carefully, for the moment.

Her careful watching does not stop. At the very least, there is the walk back through campus still, and then the cablecar, three stops, to Cinnamon Hill on the edge of Aratra; but he is not a child to be dressed in yellow and taken through campus. She finds it easy to guide them to a seat on the upper floor where they can sit a little while, and talk; she takes him to another case, one she has always liked, with scraps of once-torn ancient paper, thick enough that it has been sewn back together with delicate scraps of browned thread; the seams run all through it, holding the spell circle inked on the page to itself.

There are no spirits but theirs, no ghosts but memories, not here; no hands reach out to grasp them, and no voices whisper from the books. Nothing beckons to Nkemi which should not; nothing, she thinks, to Anetol either. She wonders, sometimes, if some day they will. She puts these things aside again.

In time, after they have sat a little longer, Nkemi takes Anetol’s arm, and makes sure he is close to the railing as they go down the stairs. There is no water in the West Hall, but in the entryway there is a place to sit and have a drink, if Anetol wishes; Nkemi asks, this time, rather than commands.

When he is ready, they leave Idisúfi behind, and venture out once more into the bright sunlight. Even Nkemi squints a little, this time, although she grins, too, inescapable, closing her eyes and lifting her chin.

“There is no rush,” Nkemi says, glancing at Anetol. “There is more of Thul’Amat we may see, or Dejai Point.” She has no more preparations to make; she has reviewed her notes for the hearing the next day already. No prefect thinks that the truth alone is sufficient; anyone who has argued before a judge understands that preparation, too, matters. Truth is the clay, Nkemi remembers hearing, once, very early in her training; your task is to shape it.

“If you are hungry, I know some places also,” Nkemi says, cheerfully. She herself is, though not urgently; they have both of them been up since the early morning, and although she enjoyed the dzutan very much, kofi har’aq is not quite lunch. She smiles at Anetol, lingering in the shade at the edge of Idisúfi; she lets him choose.

[Tom Cooke]

Idisufi • Thul’amat

Morning on the 23rd of Bethas, 2720

H
e didn’t know what he heard in the spaces between her words, like the spaces between lines and letters; he felt sure, all the same, she didn’t know what lay between his. But it felt like the echo of a bell, even if the note it sang was different. The weight of all the sea he’d skipped in the airship seemed to’ve settled around his shoulders, but the air in the library was dry and smelled of books, and there was something to wandering among all the rows of spines, shut books, with his arm looped through hers.

Evers all, but only a few he’d slide from the shelf and glimpse; only a few she showed him, among many. There’s something to walking among them and choosing which ones to look into, choosing to share the memories, choosing to open the window or the door.

They’re much more like Evers than ghosts – Nkemi’s put it well, he thinks, no less wistful, but content – they’ve not the grasping claws of ghosts; they don’t always leave a trace, when the book is shut and replaced.

Some do – she’s shown him one he thinks he’ll dream of, with paper so old it seems to him like cloth. He’s seen quilts sewn together so, but never out of the shapes of plots and prodigia; he’s half-frightened to run his fingers over them, and this is the ghost: rendered so, the familiar swoops of lines and stark, runic shapes of monite are unfamiliar, and he thinks this must be arcane in some way that he’s scarce imagined.

He asks if he may, because he knows there are books at Brunnhold that touch can fade and dissolve, and he runs light fingertips over them; it’s not unlike the drawing. He thinks of things torn apart and pieced together, and aches with gratefulness.

He also thinks of puzzle pieces, scattered, put into place. He thinks of puzzle pieces that don’t fit, and questions that go unanswered. He gives what he can, all the same; he whispers and he listens, though he listens more than he whispers.

He’s glad to linger and talk; he’s glad of her patience, though he tires of himself and knows he leans, knows his breath’s heavy sometimes. He knows to accept the chance to sit and drink, and the water is cool enough to offset the embarrassment. Nkemi pezre Nkese has never drawn attention to it, though it would be the truth to call him a tired old man, or to caution him against stretching himself thin.

He thinks, as they move across the mosaic toward the doors, there’s another Ever holding all of it together. She’s told him some – not all – some, enough; he can weave a quilt of his own, piecing together the scraps of favorite bookcases and nooks and carrels. It’s a world so alien to his that he scarce has the thread to stitch them, but he tries nonetheless. Prep schools, blessings, maps, Ire’dzosat, prefects. Somehow, this isn’t the place for the word brigk; this is nothing like what he thought it would be.

Outside, it’s even warmer than it was; the high sun washes him of sight for a moment, until he comes back into focus, until he opens his eyes. Beside him, Nkemi’s grinning. “I –” he starts after a moment, as they descend the steps.

The sound of his voice startles him; they’ve been so long whispering. He laughs, his silly snort. “I got so used to whispering,” he says, grinning. As they move into the dappled shade, he thinks.

It’s been a long three days, he might say; his shoes pinch – a problem he will fix, he thinks, soon – and he’s conscious that he’s leaning. He’s conscious, too, of her care. He’d like to see the other gardens, but he knows what he will be by the end. He’d like, he thinks, to linger longer with her – the next time they see each other, they’ll be on the way, a step over the threshold – and he has, some small and very honest part of him says, missed her very much.

The wind snatches up and carries to them a smell of fried things and spices. He’s had kofi, he thinks; kofi isn’t yats, he thinks. “I am hungry,” he admits, smiling over at her. A benny enough medium, maybe. “I’d be grateful for your guidance.”

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 23 Bethas, 2720
The Walkways of Thul Ka and Streets of Dejai Point

It is the vraun which Nkemi thinks of, the apples and fish in a green spiced sauce, and how on that strange morning she and Anetol had fallen upon it; she remembers the taste of it, and the quiet laughter among the elderly wick men, and how she had sat opposite Anetol and told him - not just the truth, but the truth shaped like clay with her hands into the way of her stay in Anaxas. She had not known what he would make of it; she had not yet known what she would make of it. Perhaps she still did not.

Nkemi smiles. She would not have begrudged Anetol the wish to return to the hotel and to rest, but she is glad.

“This way,” Nkemi says with a grin. She trusts him to follow her, now; he has done it many times before.

She does her best to find the shade along the walkways; there are trees enough on campus, but little enough they can do when the sun beats so high overhead. The campus is still quiet, as it was when they entered Idisúfi - quieter, perhaps, in this the hottest stretch of the day. There are students still; there are always students. They read, and they nap, and they chatter; life, Nkemi thinks, smiling at Anetol.

They make their way back out through the gate; the Walk of Tsed’tsa is without a trace of shade. It is still lively; vendors with canvas make their own canvas, although some have given up and retreated away. Boys still play with a ball, laughing, undaunted; they are different boys and it is a different ball, but it is much the same game.

The buildings at the edge of campus are tall enough for a hint of cover; Nkemi wanders Anetol off the walk and down one of the narrower, shady streets. Students are thicker here, sitting at cafes, laughing, smoking, reading. There is food; the scrape or fingers and silverware on plates and bowls fills the air, alongside the spicy rich smell of a thousand different meals. It is bright; the students and their food and the tables and chairs and awnings makes a tapestry of vivid color, too many to pick out, stitched together with invisible thread.

Nkemi’s stomach grumbles, loud enough to be audible over their footsteps and the echoes of so much laughter; she giggles.

“I spent many hours in such places,” Nkemi smiles. “My dormitory in second year was there,” she gestures down another street, fondly. “It is mostly students, who live here,” she explains. “Campus is a place of learning only; we do not stay there,” Nkemi pauses, “except for the nights when there is too much work,” she concedes, “when sleep finds us unaware.”

She ate in the dorms, mostly; there is food provided in many of them for breakfast and dinner, communal meals with bowls and ramshackle tables and chairs, from one to eight.“On nine and ten, we would fend for ourselves,” she is saying aloud, giggling, “like small ravenous beasts.”

Anetol is quiet beside her; he has been for some time, and his breath is coming a little harder than it was. But he laughs with her, and he walks more easily when she speaks, and Nkemi finds it is very easy, after all, to continue.

“So, it was as a hungry girl of seventeen that I found this place,” Nkemi says, cheerfully. “And even when I moved dorms I would come back here; you will understand, I think, why.”

They are there, finally, beneath a blue-bright awning. Nkemi opens the door, and leads Anetol up the thin winding stairs. She doubts, for a moment; she goes slowly. But she thinks - she does not wish to waste the precious drops of his time here.

They come out on the rooftop. It is all shade; fabrics drift overhead in the breeze, and the light that seeps through is somehow cooler than it has any right to be. Tables are scattered across the rooftop, mismatched wood but all of them neat; students, mostly, of varying ages and dress.

Nkemi looks around, carefully; there are open tables, but… she waits, and she sees movement at the edge of the rooftop, and she grins. She leads Anetol over.

“Enjoy, ada’na,” the students leaving say with a giggle, peeking wide-eyed at Anatole, two fields just on the other side of dasher fluttering politely against them.

“As you must have,” Nkemi says, cheerfully; they sit.

They are not so high, most of the buildings around the edges of Thul’Amat, and so – from here, on the edge of this lovely lifted rooftop, with the whistling breeze and little enough heat from the sun – they can see all across the edges of Dejai Point, to the Walk of Tsed’tsa – even the edges of the gate – and into the campus beyond.

Nkemi smiles at Anetol, settling in comfortably. A server who looks student-aged comes and sets glasses of water which bubbles up before them, and a little plate with wedges of lime and a small metal pouring pot. “It is a sugar syrup,” Nkemi says, taking a wedge of lime and squeezing it into her glass; she picks up the metal pot, and pours a little into her cup, and stirs it all around with the thin metal piece already placed in it for that purpose. “There is no need to order,” Nkemi says, cheerful. “I have every time liked what they bring.”