The Totem-Maker (part one hundred forty-two)

The Totem-Maker

Chapter Thirteen

The Citadel

(part one hundred forty-two)

My purpose in these accounts is to teach of my journey to a modest wisdom—which I allow to be revered (for the poor of the land have only the wise to spare them tyranny). Also, to recall for the generations, what peoples once lived in those nations that the gods with sulphur and fire have laid low; for the city of Lom was not the only to be sunk in ash, whose traces at times emerge, but whose inhabitants are scattered, whose learning cannot be taught, for it is forgotten…

Whose music cannot be played, whose sagas cannot be sung, whose beauties cannot be admired, whose glory we tread underfoot as dust.

Tanka Torin, with his fine house of lacquered pillars, polished bone and purple shell petalling their chrysanthemum capitals; and of marbled floors, rich red carpets…had no grandfatherly ways of welcome. I was young. An elder, kindly and managing, was yet my longing; to be taught, as a promising acolyte…

With Elberin, I had never had this.

With Torin, I was not to have it. Torin disliked the idea of me, and disliked that I must embody it. “How did your state come about? On what authority, if I may ask, were you sent to the tollhouse?”

“I believe my old master had so counselled the Prince.”

“He takes counsel? He is a foreigner.”

“Well,” I said. I lied, then (it is possible). “His wife is kin to the zhatabe. Do you want to see one of the totems and judge for yourself?”

In the way of a difficult man, he accepted this practical answer not at all. He took some nameless offense, withdrawing physically from my person, as though I might spring an asp from my cloak.

“Your totems may be of the gods, or merely…”

A trick or delusion, I finished for him, inside. And this was entirely true. “Perhaps you will pray to Chosi A’ra, and he may change your heart in the night.”

His feast for me lacked nothing; we ate in silence. We ate as host and guest, two alone. Serdik kept the door, and often Torin was often called to it. My Totem put this in my own heart: that a priest at such a thoroughfare, with a thousand travelers to guide and bless, might in all his years have given thought to few things. Thoughts were interrupted. He was praised, thanked, lavished with coins…it was enough.

I must cease my jealous wish to be as those foundlings of wives’ tales, where it is less the intellect of the sage, more the void in his pupil…

To have wanted teaching that tattlers tell, tempters tempt, the greedy want their pay, the lazy their rest, the angry only to be angry. But yet—the kind, the good, and the humble must have their reward, and the wise cultivate it (whether or no a Castor calls this cynicism). In still waters, heavy things sink; in a constant roil, anything may surface.

146

The Citadel

The Totem-Maker (part one)

(2018, Stephanie Foster)