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

The Totem-Maker

Chapter Thirteen

The Citadel

(part one hundred forty-five)

I cantered on, Cuerpha in the mood for this run, our way sloping downwards. My Totem had been seeking me, for the sensible thought came that I ought to seek it.

And with these words, I addressed it: I know you won’t intervene. I ask only to be made conscious of my folly. I ask this pity I feel for myself to cease; or if it cannot cease (for I have met many venerable ones who seem slave to it), then let it shout so loudly its warning, that it shames me to hear it.

I want no one to make me angry. I want a means of viewing Castor, who provokes me…

My mind filled with the sight of a window, stone-framed; not a tower vantage, but a level one. The land was forested, fragrant with mosses and the barks of trees dripping their balsams. Birds plumaged brown and green moved in and out of thick fern beds. Shafts of sun like a potion of the gods poured from heaven, a glowing serpentine smoke, a yellow velvet…

But this was Paradise, not…

Not a patch of earth, symbolic of toleration, which my heart wanted my Totem somehow to craft. Unless I was to think of our gods’ rewards to their favorites; as, pleasing them, I might join them in their land beyond the stars. What would my Totem have me understand? That these riches were earned by the love I found in myself for others?

Others I would put aside disregarded, to pursue my course untroubled by them.

Castor. My zhatabe, and her seeming ploys. I was dishonest to boast that I was even-tempered, calm and helpful, when many times I had turned my heel and stalked away. I possessed that aura, born from Lotoq, that made even Castor follow and plead with me.

You are not here to win; you are here to lose.

I halted Cuerpha. I had seen a glimpse of water, and knew I must not punish this uncomplaining creature, because my thoughts were deep and I had not puzzled them out.

The water, I saw, was gathered in a pool. Here now, in life, were moss-laden trees, a more gleaming edge to their scent than in my vision; and their tops were below my toes. I dismounted, pressed cautious feet to a precipice, leaving Cuerpha tied, trying the solid earth, never forgetting the fright I’d had at the tollhouse.

A hillside had slumped to make this bouldered shelter, but so long ago that trees gripped them in roots of a hundred summers’ growth. I could hear the susurration of a waterfall. I might drink from the pool, but to step in it would be a great danger. Travelers, of course, used this road; their filling of skins had trampled out a footpath that marked the safest way down, hooves leaving rounds and crescents on dun-colored soil, thin and dry.

I led Cuerpha; finally I sidled behind and let him jog ahead. Was I nervous of thieves, or was it the cooking fires in the air, the encroach of mankind not far distant…? Winding through dense woodland I could see a vista opened and closed upon, clouds and their shadows below them, a plain where an army camped.

149

The Citadel

The Totem-Maker (part one)

(2018, Stephanie Foster)