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

The Totem-Maker

Chapter Thirteen

The Citadel

(part one hundred forty-three)

Morning arrived, and Castor with the ponies, parting a heavy mist that veiled Torin’s lane. From discontented sleep I had risen before the household…and gained none of the hour of peace and privacy I’d congratulated myself on.

I gave my usual greeting: “What news?”

As usual, his answer took me astray. “Come away now, if you can roll your pack quickly. They would rather not feed you breakfast. We are expected at the Arca.”

I did not, until we were mounted, ask him: “How far to the Citadel from Aran?”

“It will depend on your choice.”

“Bhe! Enough of riddles!”

“No. The zhatabe are waiting. I do not dissemble with you, Totem-Maker. I give you the best advice I have.”

“Damp air at dawn is known to carry voices, but let me say it! False mysticism, senseless tests I am made to pass! I will cut through this, I promise you. I understand my mission, and it is not to waste my time on childish games, for the pleasure—which I would call beguilement—of a cowed people. They have no wealth, for the zhatabe are claimed to supply all needs. They do not choose, for the zhatabe have chosen for them.”

I paused, having launched the sort of argument our minds construct in threes. A third case eluded me…and the space it might have filled told me my heart wasn’t in it.

“Stop,” said Castor. “You understand your own mission. You do not understand why the Prince agreed to send you here. Pity him. He believes in you.”

“Yes, he is superstitious, I know it.”

“It may be he believes you strangely wise.”

The fog over the Arca was dense, but pace by pace we led our ponies. Up stairs, and to the center, where the flagstones had a design of the heavens: the sun in gold, the moon in silver, the stars crystal.

Figures appeared, seven women.

“Zhatabe.” I gave a small, disgruntled obeisance.

“I am zhatabe,” said one. “My sisters are not.”

“Vlana,” I said, defiance now in my voice, lest the honor of my homeland be found provincial. “Do I learn I am to choose a way to the Citadel? Will you tell me the shortest?”

She gave me a hug; a ceremonial kind, hands on my shoulders, pressing her cheek to near touching mine. “Is it the shortest way you prefer?”

“No, Vlana. I prefer the most magical, the way that will end all wars at once.”

They laughed, pleasantly, all of them. However, Castor stood grim.

“You and I will play the War-Maker’s Game,” she said. “I think you must enjoy it. I have one underway now with my brother Ami, four years’ long. But I may cheat him, having you. Say that in the northeast corner, your soldiers are thirteen, in the shape of a shorter ell, outside a longer one. Do I paint for you clearly?”

I found, as she had my arm, that we were progressing, and that we had reached a threshold.

147

The Citadel

The Totem-Maker (part one)

(2018, Stephanie Foster)