The Totem-Maker (part one hundred twenty-six)

The Totem-Maker

Chapter Twelve

A Land So Perilous

(part one hundred twenty-six)

Now, I will speak to my reader of thoughtful things.

I have told how it came to me, leaving the country of my birth, arriving on the shores of the Balbaecan plain of the Alëenon, that strangers knew not our gods. They had raised gods of their own. My years were twenty-two, yet often I had seen impiety. I had known men and women to laugh at the rituals, give a sportive wink with their alms—

I had felt offended by this. I was of the priestly class. I was a being like no other, granted by my Father Lotoq the powers of a seer.

I wished always to be pleasing to Lotoq, and tried to cultivate humility. Too easily a gift becomes a possession. I say this, because if you have attempted purity in self-effacement, you will guess the trap. Can I love Lotoq for the power I hold, if I am not to recognize that I hold power?

But I could see that impiety was never so roundly and swiftly punished as in the stories we tell, to teach wisdom.

The reward of wisdom we must find in ourselves. Often, impiety is not punished at all.

Two of our party who were the Citadel’s, the traders’ people, came to me nightly for studies by firelight. They told me the zhatabe knew my book’s symbols, the strange lines of pictographs; that the learned lady [Noakale] knew them, and that writing was the work of spellcasters, consulted of dire necessity.

That it must be so, for nothing of use could be forgotten.

“All this road, we could not know our own hands better. I can draw you any part of it.” The woman, Ba’ahn, whose furs and knitted overshoes were no different from the man’s, Diira, nor were her labors, with a wedge of stone on the cave’s floor showed me this. The maps of her travels she carried all in her head. How to spot a hare against the snow, how a hawk’s flight differed from an eagle’s, were taught in furrows of sand. These swift strokes were faultlessly observed. “Yes, I can tell you the signs…that place there, where the poor guardians sleep. I warn you not to pass unless you would leave bread for heaven.”

We made our sacrifice, and of impiety, I could mention Castor’s mirth, feinting that he would restore the bread to his pack. But he had not. To Ba’ahn and Diira, the guardians lived in twilight, and visited the gods they could not join. Our kindness ensured our luck; they would intercede and beg the mountain hold her temper, let us pass.

I spoke to our guides in the language I knew I must learn well. I framed questions, I accepted words as they pronounced them, begged their patience in speaking slowly to me. The zhatabe must at least feel doubt I could be lied to. He must guess from my having learned a little, that I had means to learn a lot, and that the Prince who had sent my embassy cared that it succeed.

Yet Castor had the truth of it; the Prince could not be at ease with his superstitions. Having only me in whom to invest this longing for magic, not a comfortable stone idol, but a small person, he would far rather see my plan fail. But see it…that was essential. He could not feel right unless certain I was wrong.

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Lore and Lessons

The Totem-Maker (part one)

(2018, Stephanie Foster)