[Closed] For Every Shadow a Source of Light

[Tom Cooke]

The Vauquelin House • Uptown

Early Morning on the 29th of Vortas, 2719

L
etting go was hard. He looked across at Nkemi, and some of the careful blankness of his face melted. His jaw tightened, the lines around his eyes pinched. He wanted to snap, no, it’s not well; I’ll do it myself. I’ll do whatever I godsdamn please, he wanted to insist. I’m a man, not a –

Boch. Exactly, he thought, like a flooding boch. He took a deep breath, and when he let it out, there was a tickle of a smile at his lip.

“It’s well,” he conceded, inclining his head in return. “Keep me – informed, ada’na.” He couldn’t quite help it.

So it was. But he’d be damned, he thought, stretching for his cup of kofi on the table, he’d be damned if he wasn’t there when the watch was found. And he’d be damned if anything happened to the prefect doing this on his behalf, off the clock. The least he could do was be there, like a man with half a shred of honor.

It was moony enough, all this. He took a long, contemplative sip. It was easier to swallow now; maybe because the warm kofi had eased something in his throat. Or maybe the fire, or the comforts of the study, or the company.

He looked up when Nkemi spoke again, and both his eyebrows went up.

But it was a careful expression, too. He smiled back at her, when she smiled; the comfort of his posture did not shift or tense. The culture center. He had not known; he'd thought the few pages there were mouldering in neglect, like Brunnhold's phasmonia. He might've known better.

He had heard Serkaih was a very colorful place, to be a place for the dead. The pictures in print didn’t give you a good idea of it, the few Mugrobi he’d asked had told him; it wasn’t just the lanterns, set out along the winding path and in the desert and canyons around, guiding the souls that got lost in the desert. It was everything. He didn’t understand; he couldn’t quite picture it.

He couldn’t help a glance at ada’na’s socks; her feet were tucked up under her, but a little splash of rich purple jumped out from the shadowed hem of her trousers. He thought of her scarf and sweater from the night before, and it wasn’t hard to smile back.

He supposed the dead liked color, after all.

Nkemi looked comfortable, but there was something – he couldn’t put his finger on it. And how did she know about Serkaih? Only those who visited the dead often would know it well; for all her brightness, he wondered.

The question wasn’t a surprise, but there was some new tightness in her voice. He wasn’t sure what to make of it.

He felt more than ever it was important to choose his words carefully. But how to explain?

“Ib’vúqem had an approach…” He looked pinched again. He sucked his tooth, thinking; he stared into the fire.

A small smile lit up his face, crinkling round his eyes. He swept the shelves near the hearth, skimming the blurry glinting titles on the spines; he chewed on the idea for another moment, then pushed himself up out of his seat with a grunt of effort. He left his cup of kofi, mostly finished, on the table.

He slid a forest-green volume from its place. He did not have to look for it; he knew rightaway where Web of Souls was.

still in his socks – he’d left his boots flopped empty by his chair – he padded over to Nkemi’s chair. He sat himself lightly on the edge of the arm, smiling sheepishly, and offered her the book.

“This is the poetry of a Deftung philosopher,” he said, “and the mother of a dear, but – unexpected friend of mine. She gave it to me after I...”

He paused, reaching to open it. No lies, he promised himself. The pages crackled; the paper was soft under his fingertips. They skimmed a few lines of ink.

The familiar is dear, oft a blessed sign
and found in unexpected places, a gods' given omen.
Eyes, ears, soul, open all lest ye be senseless
When portents come. Home is with you always
Close yourself and you will never find it 'more.

He looked at Nkemi. His field mingled warmly with hers, warmly and calmly. “I don’t know what Serkaih means to you, ada’na, but I’ve been a restless soul in need of a lantern,” he said. “The dead deserve our warmth and understanding. The Cycle ties us all together; I’d like to know nothing is ever really lost. Not books, not souls. I think ada’na Eres was trying to grasp that – tangibly.”

He frowned, wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know if that answers your question, after all, ada’na. It’s a damned hard one.” He smiled.

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Morning, 29 Vortas, 2719
Third Floor Study, Vauquelin House

If Thul'Amat was the brain of ib'vuqem, Ada'xa Natete pez Rejas had said to her once, Serkaih was its heart. Nkemi had been perhaps eight when the old scholar had first come, and no more than twelve when he had come again. She had spent months and then the fullness of a summer break running errands for the historian, fetching tea, sending letters and bringing notes and books from his luggage down the narrow winding paths to the canyon below. Most of all, she had been an enthusiastic audience for whatever lectures caught his bright and brilliant interest, soaking in strange and unfamiliar words and ways of thinking with little comprehension and considerable delight.

He had taken her through the phasmonia once, following down and through the long line of lanterns to the place where the canyon twisted and gave the illusion of pinching shut. The way is not shut to those who know to look, Natete had promised. They had squeezed through the dark passage - Natete crawling briefly, Nkemi holding his lantern, lines criss-crossing the rich colors of the rock, tracing patterns upon patterns. He had shown her the plots carved deep into the caverns there, the edges worn smooth by the passage of centuries.

Her father had been working in the phasmonia when they came back. Nkemi had smiled at him as they went, bright; he had watched her, solmen, for a long time. Slowly - like the edge of a lantern's light - a smile had warmed his face, tracing in new and unfamiliar lines.

Vakelin sat on the edge of her chair and offered Nkemi a green book. She had watched him come, and she took the book from him in both hands. He opened it for her, and Nkemi looked down at the page.

Home is with you always, Nkemi read, two fingertips skimming lightly over the printed words. She went back up and read the verse again, wondering. Web of souls, she thought. Vakelin was speaking again, calm and clear; his field tangled with hers. It was effortless to return the caprise, to find again a deep and easy mingling together. Nkemi knew what she searched for; she knew what True'art saw. She understood, but she did not see.

Home is with you, if you are open to receive it, she saw written between the lines. Nkemi puzzled quietly through them; she had never known poetry to speak to her. It had no face to observe, no voice to listen to, no field to touch hers; she found herself often uncertain about what was there, beneath the surface. She was not quite sure she understood how these words linked to Eres.

And if you sought, Nkemi thought, longingly - was there anything which could not be a portent? Soul open, and eyes and ears too. I'd like to know nothing is ever really lost, Vakelin said, quietly.

He wanted the book. Nkemi understood; he could explain it, calmly and evenly, and could try to help her understand. He sounded reasonable as he did so; he was easy, perched on the arm of her chair. He smiled at her, warm and hopeful; he was not afraid to poke gently at himself.

"I want to understand," Nkemi said, smiling up at him a little more; she scrunched up her nose as he had. She looked back down at the book. "Perhaps I do not need to." It was not only understanding she wanted, Nkemi knew. She could accept that, at least more easily that she could accept her not knowing.

"Thank you for sharing these poems with me," Nkemi's smile widened, and became just a little shy. "I am not very good with poetry," she turned the page, curious, "and I am sure there is very much I am missing. But it feels very," a little frown wrinkled her forehead, and then smoothed out, "familiar," Nkemi said, carefully, looking up at Vakelin.

[Tom Cooke]

The Vauquelin House • Uptown

Early Morning on the 29th of Vortas, 2719

P
erhaps it’s the wanting,” countered Tom, “and the trying, that counts. It counts to me, at least.”

The line was very thin; you could feel the empty space on either side, and how it frayed like twine. Still he put his weight down. Something about how Nkemi wrinkled her nose right back at him. Something. His smile warmed where it should’ve faded; he took another step, where he should’ve scrambled back to the cliff.

And below, the canyon gaped, and if he lost his balance, he didn’t know he’d catch himself.

Not knowing what was underneath was the hardest part, maybe. Maybe, if he looked down, he’d catch the glimpses of lanterns there; maybe it’d be full of color, in some way he couldn’t picture. He didn’t know if he had the hope in him to believe that.

Not knowing was something they shared. He didn’t know what she didn’t know; he didn’t know the why of her wanting. No lanterns to guide him through this dark, not unless he lit one himself by asking her. A map, he thought for what must’ve been the hundredth time, in a different tongue, without landmarks.

Such a map was dangerous. Following the wrong lamp could be worse, Tom thought, than being lost. But he toed the fraying line and studied her, his book open comfortably in her lap.

She was frowning down at it, her chin nestled neatly into the folds of her scarf. His fingertips had lingered on the lines, as if afraid to let go of the ink. Her hand nearby was dark against the pale parchment. Other ghosts joined them – the faint impressions of fingerprints, where nowadays he couldn’t be sure if it was him or Rosmilda had touched. The edges of the pages, worn down by the traffic of well-meaning thumbs.

She thanked him, and he looked at her again, his brow furrowed.

Familiar slipped off the page and out into the air in ada’na’s soft accent, warmly-offered. Tom smiled again as she looked up at him. “I think you’re meant to miss some things,” he replied, shifting comfortably on the arm, “and find others, depending on what you’re looking for. Depending on what’s familiar.”

Grief, or homesickness – he didn’t know – he knew bits and pieces, too scattered to knit together. Serkaih, the word justice on her tongue, the kov she’d routed into the Turga. Her unaccountable interest in this case, which he didn’t think he could put down to some masked third party, or concords, or the turning of the Symvoulio, not anymore. Maybe familiar was just the smell of kofi, and a little warmth.

The past is a river, he remembered.

He could’ve thanked her in return. It was on the tip of his tongue, but he was afraid of its falseness. She didn’t know who thanked her, or for what, not really. Funny, that she’d seen his face in the water, that she’d traced its scars over her own.

Tom was beginning to understand it was easier to show than tell, if you wanted to be honest.

Gently, his hand crept round to the corner of the page; he leaned a little closer over the book, flipping crackling parchment. His throat and his head and all of him ached, but his breath came easier. There was balance here, at least, perched on the arm of the chair.

“Sometimes, I think it’s like a map. Or like maps seem to me.” His eyes flicked over the blurry lines of ink. “I don’t know what I would do with the map of a city I’d never been to; I don’t know what it would mean to me. But if I saw a map of Thul Ka, I’d know something of Windward Market, now. Maybe all we ever see is the familiar.”

He smiled at her, brief and shy, before he found the page. His fingertip traced the small black ornament of an arrow in flight, ink glistening.

He reached into his waistcoat pocket and took out his glasses, settling them on his nose. “The arrow cannot grasp the powers that act on it, cannot know that the end of its flight is not an end,” he murmured. “Broken or bringer of death at the end, it matters not; reused, reformed, it flies again…”

His voice wrangled with the translated Deftung; he lost the rhythm, found it, lost it again. All was in translation. A hazy glimpse of the truth, he thought, in a dish of water. I cannot tell you, but I am not lying.

His voice warmed anyway. “It is not lost,” he read, “and what is not lost can never die.”