The Totem-Maker (part seventy-five)

The Totem-Maker

Chapter Eight

Use for Use

(part seventy-five)

It discontented me much to feel rivaled by a legendary Me, adventuring while its poor shadow lay tethered. I reminded myself of my list. Fresh-killed game, if they had any. More yarn. More arrows for my bow. (I’d learned arrows were easily lost. They did not go where you’d aimed them.)

“Totem-Maker!”

I collected my thoughts, spurred to the gate on Cuerpha, for the usual reason of ceremony. The traders knew all states and manners in which tollhouse keepers past had greeted them. I hadn’t the language to ask that they teach me. This added height of my pony was all I’d achieved towards dignifying my role.

But the address was in the tongue of my first country.

“Who speaks?”

His hair was the hue of my orange meadow flowers…he was a northerner. But not a Prince’s man; one permitted the pass of the Citadel.

“Can you translate for me?” I asked. I had more to say… Can you ask if they’ll spare time to stay the night, now the weather seems gentler? Can they tell me their stories, can you, of sights along the roads and lands beyond the mountains?

I wore my latest knitting. The stranger jumped from the wagon that bore him. I dismounted. He sauntered, closing on me and looking my garment up and down, my question ignored.

How I found myself disliking him!

“Curious patterns. What do you make them for?”

“Because, stranger, I don’t know any better. Call me if you’d like, Nur-elom. Why should you call me Totem-Maker?”

“Oh, you will make your totems in time. You’ve unearthed the seeds. That’s a rare start.”

He waved the others onwards, preempting my bargaining. The lead rider whistled, whips flicked, and the caravan gained speed. My wish was granted, praise the gods…my asked-for companion was to be this arrogant stranger.

At last the coins were tossed, and the stranger stooped and took the sack of them too.

“But,” I said, feinting left and right. He seemed to shift onto whatever foot put him squarely in my path. “I have purchases!”

“I can’t promise my wagon holds everything. But it holds most things.”

He was taller and making distractions with his hands; I was angry, my mind rehearsing hard feelings…

I had not observed them leave a wagon off their train, a beast—not a horse, but a frightening thing with horns—yoked to it.

“It is full Springtime, Keeper. The people of Balbaec will be making their way up.”

“But the traders, going down, and ahead of you…”

“Yes, the goods of Taqtan are one sort of thing. Mine are another. Now show me in. I want to see totems with my own eyes.”

79

Use for Use

The Totem-Maker (part seventy-six)

(2018, Stephanie Foster)