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

The Totem-Maker

Chapter Thirteen

The Citadel

(part one hundred forty-six)

Here to lose.

My puzzle needed this solving: What would I have done, were I to count myself the winner? How then, failing, could I achieve a better thing?

I heard a sudden chattering, a cat’s when its prey is near. Air rushed, a thrill of strange sound, and a dark-furred beast, a muscled and graceful beast, sailed above me. The panther would have taken me, but an arrow flew to cross her path. A magnificent twist midair, and she altered course, bounding into the trees.

“Hello! A lucky thing.”

I said it aloud. I said next what I meant by luck. “I hope the people here would not kill a beautiful creature. I am sure the gods would punish pride so misplaced.”

My voice was most censorious, but no person appeared to confess following me. “This is well and good, Cuerpha,” I said, with only Cuerpha to speak to. I descended, making all the rustling and stomping noises I could. “I am weaponless and alone, and these woods hold perils I have not been warned of, and if anyone with a bow wished to show himself honestly, I would thank him for having meant to act in kindness. But the Totem-Maker, like all who live, profits from a lesson learned. Or lives no more.”

In my defense, I offer that I had been puzzling, and when I do, I value my peace; and that our poor Earth, since the era of cruel winters dawned with the Wrath, has fewer of its lovely panthers, its brown and green plumaged birds, its ancient and mossy trees.

And that I had treasured them, truly, more than myself.

I had been distracted, interrupted; I was deeply peeved, to think the people of the Citadel spied, hoping to gain a secret of mine, letting me believe that only I and my pony traversed this road. I had been a possession, bought and sold. My choices and my freedom were one, and were I the very byword of Folly, still I had the right…

Not to be steered by the head, not touched with the whip right and left, until my course was theirs.

Lessons, lessons. Yes, Totem, I said inside. I asked to be humbled, and I am humbled. I asked for my mistakes to shout; and I am deafened.

I caught Cuerpha’s harness. From the bowl of the pool, I scanned the trees, and the rock face, and knelt finally, cooled, to fill my skins. I unpacked my own bow and arrow, and my knife.

Then, I found my clay flute and began a simple melody. I had an ear for the prettiest tunes; I’d invented numbers of them. The ringing woods were stilled, and I sat alone. The archer must by now be certain I had no harm in me.

I ate. I led my pony back to the road.

And here Castor came cantering down. The seven sisters had acquired a wagon; flagbearers, and another wagon, followed. A shaggy sort of ox, with three on its back, ambled after. Then musicians on foot, playing bells on strings, instruments that looked like abaci, to calculate changes in a temporal language.

150

The Citadel

The Totem-Maker (part one)

(2018, Stephanie Foster)