The Totem-Maker (part forty-three)

The Totem-Maker

Chapter Six

A First Road

(part forty-three)

I suffered, not knowing what had befallen me…but I traveled among indifferent companions. They offered food I didn’t want; they offered drink I did.

Yes or no, I was not rewarded, not rebuked or coaxed.

When able, I asked Wosogo: “What sort of journey is this? Why are we going?”

“I…journey. But I think I have not the word. Balbaec is a town of the Alëenon, all they, those people, trade by the mountain from the fortress city. On the plain is a great bazaar, at all times. Strangers come…they come even over mountains to the east.”

He put a picture in my mind, or the Giver did. I saw walls buttressed with living rock, a puzzle of tunnelways, as our own small fortress boasted—but sinister, breathing bursts of fire, through engines in the labyrinth above. I saw a great upwards road flanked in pines, a mossy garden in the clouds, circled by captive eagles. Far below, a rift between chains of peaks, a green land with a thousand bright tents. I knew of nothing in my life to account for the invention. I knew also the Prince hoped by some means to break this fortress, claim it, bottle its trade into the Emperor’s coffers.

“Why, though…” I said. A minute or two had passed.

My face might have shown anything, but Wosogo’s was as a man’s facing death in battle, who finds in his hand a spellbound weapon.

Thrilled, grim in purpose, both.

“Why, Wosogo, are we so urgent?”

“Monsecchers. The Prince has seized the city, the Emperor fears it. He will name it capital, have the harbor. But…”

“Pending one quest, to measure loyalty. And the Prince has not refused.”

A pause, and a lowered voice had brought me this confidence…gleaned, after all, from the highest councils. Wosogo trusted my magic, but he did not wish to have this talk.

“Please,” I said. “I mustn’t keep you.”

Cuerpha was my gift from Cime—my pony, his blanket, saddle, all.

Pytta came to me. “I should not. Word spreads far and wide, young fascination. Just when my husband and I would rather be small, and barely seen… I’m crying.” She was, wiping tears with the knuckles of a ring-studded hand. “We are forced to say goodbye. And because you know truth, whether I lie or don’t, why pretend…?”

“Oh, thank, and make offering to Lotoq. Peace without me is no shame to wish. Small and barely seen sounds lovely… I can’t manage it.”

“Maybe you will come by great fortune. I pray, but I fear for you.” She blushed, laughed. “To speak of luck, when you are riding off tomorrow! Curse me!”

“I don’t.”

“This,” she said.

And left me. And so I found this, the bundle, to be a vest of fleece, lined with the story of the lovers—the cloth Lom and I had fanned her with. Pytta gave me gold, chains of fat links, and other rings yet, with green stones and red, most prized.

She had sewn these in, to silently keep their places.

47

The Mustering Grounds

The Totem-Maker (part forty-four)

(2018, Stephanie Foster)